Here's an interesting difference from the way poultry is sold in Britain for those of you who do the food shopping:
I've mentioned previously that, in general, whole birds are not cooked in Italy. Therefore you cannot just pick, say, a whole chicken , oven-ready, off the supermarket shelf; you have to ask the butcher there for it. I usually buy from the butcher across the road but this morning I purchased a chicken from the supermarket and there, they were displayed not only with the head still on, as is usual, but also the feet had been put inside the cavity. I told the butcher that I did not want the head , neck or feet but noticed that he weighed the bird with these before discarding them. I paid €10.22 for a chicken weighing 2.282 kg., which seems expensive to me, though I am probably out of touch with British prices by now.
I'm not sure what the conversion rate is, but that sounds expensive to me. Unfair about having to pay for the excess feet etc., but then I guess, we pay for the bones if we buy a leg of lamb and ask the butcher to bone it. (I bone my own if the recipe calls for it).
ReplyDeleteWelshcakes, that sounds like a pretty big chicken. I don't care for the heads or feet either.
ReplyDeleteYou can't get a much smaller chicken here. But nothing will be wasted. It will keep me on cold lunches with salad for days and then I'll make stock from the carcass and freeze it in ice cube trays.
ReplyDeleteWhat do they use the feet for? I know the Vietnamese restaurants sell duck feet, but what can you do with chicken feet?!?
ReplyDeleteA medium sized fresh chicken costs about £5 from the butcher. I bet yours was free range and tasted really delicious.
ReplyDeleteI don't know, Bonnie! - Unless they are used to add flavour in a stew.
ReplyDelete180 roubles here - about 5 euros.
ReplyDeleteEllee, according to that comparison, the price is about right , then - just a little more than in Britain. And it was free-range.
ReplyDeleteJames, I'd be interested to know more about food prices there in general?
Buona notte a tutti.
The feet etc., are used in making stock...for soups etc. I remember when I was child, we had a chicken-run in the back yard and would kill chickens for our own consumption. Well, a neighbour or my brother, when he got a little older,used to do the slaughtering but I would help with the cleaning and plucking. The giblets etc., of the chickens were always utilised in stock-making for soups. Once strained, home-made stock is the best. And as Welsh does, freeze it in smaller portions for later use.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Lee. Funny thing, we don't get the giblets here. I always make my own stock and I enjoy having it simmering away for a couple of hours while I get on with something else. I was discussing with Irma the other day the fact that Italy's is not a cuisine of many soups, other than minestrone. I suppose that's because of the pasta tradition. I might turn this thought into a post so will stop now. Will be over later.
ReplyDeleteChickens feet were one of those things that you dreaded being served during drunken karaoke client marketing trips in China. There were plenty other wacky things that you just did not want to know what they were. Some tasted pretty good, others not so. I suppose it is like asking what the recipe for haggis is, before eating. It still tastes delicious.
ReplyDeleteHi, CC. I've never tasted haggis, I'm ashamed to say. But I agree. When I used to take kids on school trips to France or Italy I'd never tell them what a dish was until they'd tasted it!
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