Saw a post on Facebook from cooksventure.com. They are selling organic free range heritage chickens from NW Arkansas for $5 a pound. And say they are unlike any chicken you have tasted. They want you to believe they are better than a victory over Alabama.
Has anybody ever had a NW Arkansas chicken like this from this company or any other? Was it really that good? I’d like to try one, but it might be a tough sale, my wife waits until turkeys are 29 cents a pound or less before she’ll buy one for Thanksgiving.
The best chicken we get is at Whole Foods Market that is free range. It runs around $4 per pound, but is tastes great compared to most yard bird you get at the stores. I am sure you can check it out on line.
I guess I will believe chicken is chicken until proven otherwise. I’ll be a hard sell, too. But maybe it really is yard bird – instead of chicken from a chicken house.
I do know that the taste of fish is all about what they have been eating and where they were eating it.
The trout from a hatchery tastes like they have been eating dog food – and that’s what they have been eating. Wild fish in the mountains has a great taste. But rainbow trout from our rivers in Arkansas is no good to eat. Some think I throw them back out of conservation practices. That’s only partly it. They just taste badly.
LDhog, if you are not willing to pay $5 a pound for chicken, you must know my wife . And Clay, they are allowed to wander around and eat natural food. That is the point, in addition to being bred for taste, not for looking good in the supermarket. And vaham, I think I won’t have a problem getting one from Whole Foods, my son is a wine, cheese, and beer buyer for Whole Foods, he can even get me a wine to go with it.
Thanks, everyone. My choice up to now has been to buy one from Tyson to support the Hogs (plus the Hogs would probably want me to eat poultry instead of pork regardless of where I got it). Or from anyone as long as it is on sale for 99 cents a pound or less my wife says.
I worked in the poultry industry for 40 yrs. about the only thing difference is the free range chicken was able to go outside the chicken houses , we cutout doors so the birds went outside, they could come back in at night and to eat .
Free range chickens are partly for PETA, but they are also for taste. To illustrate, hogs are more revered in
Spain than they are in Arkansas. They give them free range in the woods to forage for acorns and whatnot. Just as Clay said for fish, the hogs acquire a flavor based upon their diet. And even their happiness free ranging seems to be a flavor factor. They have shops in Spain that sell nothing but ham, and they are like wine shops, there are ham snobs, hams vary in price depending on where they roamed and what they ate, there are ham tastings, and some of the hams are very expensive (and I don’t mean $5 a pound expensive, it can be way over that just for a thin slice).
And one thing I know about ticks is that they can keep you free of meat. Someone I knew got bitten by a tick, that caused an allergy to red meat, they can still eat poultry but not that. Don’t tell all that to those yard birds, apparently the more they keep the yard free of ticks, the worse it can be for them. (Not that all tick bites result in red meat allergies, it is rare, but it does haopen)
Clay, as much as you love to fish and as much as you love the state of Arkansas have you ever thought about investing in or putting forth the effort necessary to conserve a few of the rivers starting with a good healthy diet for those trout. I’m not putting you on the spot here but it just makes sense. I realize it could end up becoming a costly venture but not with the help of county-wide assistance (state game & fish commision). ALL would eventually benefit including the salmon.Plus, with the resurgence of Arkansas football I see great things happening in Arkansas and around Fayetteville. Think about it before you impulsively react And then maybe read it again in a few days. Peace
Many years ago, I would occasionally fish the Taneycomo (sp?) by Branson, Mo. When you would catch some rainbow that had not just been released from the hatchery (meat was red rather than white), the taste was so much better than the others. I was told that it was because of their diet of some shrimp species (looked like rolly-polys) that was native to the stream. Don’t know why this species of shrimp would not thrive elsewhere. Maybe those that Mr. Clay was referring to had been eating bad tasting emerging bugs. As to chicken, someone would have to prove to me that the taste was fantastic for me to shell out $5/lb. Same can be said for Omaha steaks at their price when I can get black angus choice (or better) ribeyes locally that are great! And as another aside, I can tell you that wild Copper River salmon from Alaska are well worth the much greater price than the farm raised Atlantic.
That allergy is not nearly as rare as you think. . . I know 3 people that have it, my wife included and it sucks. When she got it 30 years ago, no one even knew what it was, at least now we know wha it is and what caused it.
. And Clay, they are allowed to wander around and eat natural food. That is the point, in addition to being bred for taste, not for looking good in the supermarket. And vaham, I think I won’t have a problem getting one from Whole Foods, my son is a wine, cheese, and beer buyer for Whole Foods, he can even get me a wine to go with it.