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Also check your area to see if any of the processing plants have storefronts attached to the factories.
I used to be able to go right to the chicken plant and pick up cases of chicken really cheap. In their small storefront, they had a full selection of chicken, a small hotbar that served the freshest and best prepared fried chicken you will ever taste.
The cases I fed to my dogs, were human grade, an a shocking 45 cents/lb.
The chicken I bought for cooking averaged around 1.28/lb in stores. Now that I moved, the price for chicken has increased a lot. You have to set a baseline price of what to expect to pay on average in your personal city.
If you live in a self-sufficient area, check for local farms. I would even have a family on my street butcher their own chickens for me at times. A lot of it has to do with exploring your own city and getting to know what resources are out there.
As a kid we always had fresh butchered chicken, but I don't think the availability is as easy to find today. My dad actually raised and butched rabbits for several years.
I live inside the beltway about 12 miles from the US Capitol. I just found a "farm" that sells fresh produce. It is not advertised nor are there signs. It is a family run operation but large and efficient. Their prices are cheaper than the supermarket for the vast majority of stuff they sell.
The "problem" is that if I want tomatoes I just cannot go there and get ripe tomatoes. I go there and pick some up and put them on my counter in the sun for a couple of days and they ripen there. But they are much better. I gave one to a guest this weekend and the first thing she did was smell it! I had some store bought tomatoes because I was making red sauce and they work fine for that and she smelled one of those and said it had not smell. We then did a taste test and there was no comparison.
I generally find fresh produce from the source to be cheaper than stores.
Smelling peaches for ripeness works, too. I bought some at the farm stand last week just because I walked past them and they smelled so good!
I'm stumped as to why anyone would ever imagine they could get a good tomato from a supermarket. By now the knowledge that they are trucked-in baseballs gassed with ethylene to give them color is inborn in one's DNA. I remember knowing that as a child, and I'm in my late 50s. However, it may be that some people are tricked into believing that the more expensive ones touted as "vine-ripened" or implied by the name that they are imported from some wonderful and special tomato heaven believe that those types will taste like a real garden tomato. A lot of money goes into marketing.
As a kid we always had fresh butchered chicken, but I don't think the availability is as easy to find today. My dad actually raised and butched rabbits for several years.
When I was younger we had what were called fryer chickens. They were less meaty than the ones today and had a taste I preferred more. I have not seen one in years.
When I was younger we had what were called fryer chickens. They were less meaty than the ones today and had a taste I preferred more. I have not seen one in years.
"fryers" was a term that implied size (3-4lb birds) as opposed to roasters (7-9lb birds)
and yes fryers was also implied, you could cut it up and fry in Crisco or lard
years ago there were older chickens called Fowl for soups.... or stewing chicken
Mainebrokerman, since you are a butcher, maybe you can shed some light on what I've noticed:
Not that long ago, when you went to buy ground beef, it was sold as "Ground Round (my favorite), which in general was 85/15, or Ground Chuck, which was usually 80/20, or Ground Sirloin, 90/10.
Now it ALL is labeled just "Ground Beef" with the lean/fat percentages on the packages.
Obviously, they are selling it this way because it's no longer just Round or Chuck or Sirloin in that package and so they can't claim it is...but why can't we get the type of ground beef by cut anymore?
"fryers" was a term that implied size (3-4lb birds) as opposed to roasters (7-9lb birds)
and yes fryers was also implied, you could cut it up and fry in Crisco or lard
years ago there were older chickens called Fowl for soups.... or stewing chicken
Years ago when I was really into cooking, I made a chicken dish my mother-in-law (who grew up on a farm in Falmouth, ME) taught me to make, with a stewing hen. You cooked it long and slow, with peas and carrots and onions, pulled the meat off the bones, and then thickened the gravy with cream and served it over a plate of mashed potatoes. OH was that GOOD.
I don't think I've seen a stewing hen sold in the store in decades.
Mainebrokerman, since you are a butcher, maybe you can shed some light on what I've noticed:
Not that long ago, when you went to buy ground beef, it was sold as "Ground Round (my favorite), which in general was 85/15, or Ground Chuck, which was usually 80/20, or Ground Sirloin, 90/10.
Now it ALL is labeled just "Ground Beef" with the lean/fat percentages on the packages.
Obviously, they are selling it this way because it's no longer just Round or Chuck or Sirloin in that package and so they can't claim it is...but why can't we get the type of ground beef by cut anymore?
good question...
30 yrs ago everything was ground chuck, ground round, ground sirloin
which is all ground beef (like calling different trees "wood" then breaking down the pine and birch, etc)
in the 80's beef got dumped on big time,,the cholesterol is going to kill you ,,,and on and on,,,,and ....it was the lean low fat decade...
so the meat industry responded by saying we can offer different fat percentages based on preference and cost. we wanted to be able to offer a 90% lean or leaner so the media wouldn't broadbrush all burger as being fatty (and avoid it)
so meat departments bought these contraptions called "fat analyzers" about 400 dollars back then..
you took an ounce of burger from a batch and cooked it ,,,the fat/grease dripped in a test tube,,,then a gauge measured the fat on top of the juice and this would equal the fat percentage
we knew from what we used for trimmings a guestimate of how fat/lean it was, or should be,,but we were required to test every batch
the short answer to your question is,,,consumer demand wanted to know how lean the burger was before buying it....
the larger volume stores said this is taking too much labor to test every batch,,,so they started buying the pre-mixed, pre-calculated "tube burger" this stuff came in 10lb tubes ,,
and we could buy the 75/25 the 80/20 and the 90/10 separately
this tube stock comes from million pound batches out west,,,
and gas flushed/sealed (the store still had to grind it ) and put it in a foam tray
so this saved a lot of labor testing every batch,,the other thing it did,,,,is,,if someone got sick,,,it has traceability,,,the store/chain could point the finger at the supplier,,and they are liable
this is where the pink slime came from ..... (tube burger stock) and the supermarkets have been doing this for 25 yrs
the smaller butcher shops and iga store,,,,,most didn't go this route,,,they kept on calling the chuck trimmings ground chuck and the round trimmings ground round
they can say ground round is approximately 90% but not exactly sure unless they have one of those fat analyzers to test the batch...
keep in mind this is THE best burger on the market because it comes from steak trimming and is ground fresh at store level..
most big box stores have there burger shipped in a box now and is case ready ...like Walmart
thats all I buy is ground chuck,, (usually around 85%) you need some fat for flavor, if its too lean, it will be dry and tasteless
So basically what you're saying is that nearly all chickens are fryers today. I haven't seen a chicken over four pounds in at least ten years.
lots of roasters are sold ever week in stores..
we sell hundreds of roasters every week (7-9lbs) ..more so in cooler weather
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