Let's take a trip back in time. The year is 1930. The Great Depression was just beginning. About 25% of people will be out of work, and those with regular jobs will see their income drop by as much as 40%. Families lived by the Depression-era phrase: “Use it, wear it out, make it or lose it.” Self-sufficiency was common. People grew vegetable gardens, patched up old clothes and fought to keep their homes and cars. Going to the movies was replaced by board games like Scrabble and Monopoly, and oddly enough, mini golf.
Women's magazines and radio programs taught Depression-era stay-at-home husbands how to stretch their food budgets with casseroles and one-pot meals. Favorites included chili, macaroni and cheese, soups and sliced beef on toast. Other meals included Mulligan stew, bologna stew, dandelion salad, meatloaf, beef tongue, spaghetti, cold-cooked ham and anything with potatoes.
Not much meat was consumed and most of it consisted of beef and pork. Chicken was a luxury dish and cost about a third more than beef or pork. On average, Americans ate chicken once every week or two and consumed about six chickens per year. That's 20% of the chicken we eat today. Nowadays we eat chicken several times a week. Chicken is the leading animal protein consumed in America, behind pork in 1985 and beef in 1992. We can buy chicken whole, split, fresh, frozen, ready-to-eat and pre-cooked. But in the 1930s it was a completely different story. So what happened between then and now?
In 1930, most chickens were raised on small family farms, usually in groups of 200 to 300 chickens. Most were raised for family food or eggs. There was an increasing demand for eggs, so the chickens that could be eaten were either the co*ckerels that hatched in the spring ("spring chickens") or old chickens used mainly for soup. Farms, hatcheries, feed mills and processors were all separate entities, so there was little consolidation and organization when it came to raising chickens on a large scale. That wouldn't happen until the 1940s.
Chicken was not considered an essential source of protein, so the science behind chicken was not thoroughly researched. Most of the chickens roamed the yard and had no safe chickens. They slept in the barn or together with other farm animals. This led to losses of up to 40% of the herd. Packaged chicken feed was fairly new, but most chickens' diet consisted of whatever they could get their hands on with a few handfuls of grain. The importance of feeding chickens with vitamin D in winter had not been discovered until the 1920s, which led to a small revolution in poultry farming. Hens could now survive the winter with supplements and produce healthier chicks in the spring.
The Cornish Cross broiler chickens we eat today wouldn't be "designed" for another few decades, so a dressed chicken in the 1930s was small, averaging 2 to 3 pounds, with very little breast meat. If you found a farmer willing to sell you a chicken, you probably bought it alive and slaughtered it at home. Chances are you didn't have a refrigerator to put it in. Ownership of refrigerators rose rapidly in the 1930s, from 8% to 44%. If you didn't have a refrigerator, processing chicken was just part of meal preparation.
The idea of large chicken farms was just beginning. Historically, Mrs. Cecile Steele of Delaware is often cited as the pioneer of the commercial broiler industry. In 1923 she ordered 50 chicks to be laid, but the hatchery sent her 500! She decided to raise them and sell them as meat. The demand was so high that she was able to get $0.62 per pound, which in today's dollars is more than $9 per pound! Her business became so profitable that three years later she built a barn that could house 10,000 birds. Others took notice and copied her success in states like Maryland, Virginia, Georgia and Arkansas.
An increase in chicken production led to the need for chicken processing. Beating machines wouldn't be invented until 1942, so if you could find a chicken that had already been slaughtered, it was usually "New York Dressed," meaning the feathers had been removed, the blood drained, with the feet and head. still on, and the guts intact. Removing chicken intestines was considered a basic kitchen skill, just as operating a microwave would be today.
Due to the cost and work required to get it to the restaurant, chicken was often avoided and reserved for Sunday dinners or special occasions. So the next time you're preparing dinner and you reach for those breaded frozen chicken breasts or chicken nuggets, take a moment to be thankful that you don't have to spend all day killing, dressing, and preparing a chicken for dinner. !
Tag me for more educational articles!
