Posted on 04/26/2015 10:33:43 AM PDT by nickcarraway
SNIP
In the town of McPherson, Kansas, there is a butcher shop called Krehbiels Meats, where, not long ago, an elderly woman bought a chicken that moved her to tears. The chicken had longer legs, a smaller breast and yellower skin than regular chickens, and on the back appeared two words the woman, who was in her 70s, would not have seen in a very long time: “barred rock.”
SNIP
She had every reason not to be excited. During the course of her 48 years of marriage, chicken had only ever brought disappointment. The problem was chicken and dumplings. It was one of her husband’s favorite dishes, but every time she made it his verdict was always the same: “Not as good as my mother’s.”
SNIP
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A trip up 89 or the Beeline should answer that for you. You try building a rail line through those mountains.
“...chicken soup no longer has a good flavor...”
Maybe it’s time to use a new chicken. My Dad used to joke about the job of chicken dragger at the Campbell’s Soup factory. That was a guy who dragged a chicken carcass back and forth in a long vat of hot water. (Dad grew up during the Great Depression.)
“The taste of animal flesh is strongly influenced by what an animal eats. Flavor compounds in the food birds eat find their way into bird tissue.”
I can attest to this when fishing a certain pond in Hulbert, Oklahoma
There are these yellow and very fragrant flowers surrounding the pond I use to catch fish in.
When cooking them they give off an aroma evocative of the pond and its surroundings.
The taste? So sweet and delicious.
Catching fish just a mile down the road, out of the lake produces fish that are delicious as well but, nothing like the bass of that pond.
Still not moving back though..
All very simple. Best explained perhaps by a recent evening in which I watched the movie Marny on Netflix. Very first scene was in his butcher shop. Sign for chicken on the wall, .53/lb.
Recently was in Publix. Chicken was 1.49/lb.
Median income in 1955 was around $5000. Today it’s around $50,000. So income has gone up 10x, while price of chicken has gone up less than 3x. This means chicken, in real terms, costs less than 1/3 what it did 60 years ago.
Tasty chicken could still be produced and sold, using the old methods, but it would cost a multiple of what it did back then. Most people think of chicken as a commodity and won’t pay more.
Same exact scenario as airplane flights. People complain about the service but always take the lowest price. What do they think will happen to quality in such a scenario? Someone providing higher quality, by definition, has higher costs and can’t compete with somebody willing to cut quality.
It’s odd, we have a whole range of qualities at different prices for cars, liquor, restaurants, housing and a lot of other things, but not for meats, airplane flights and many other things. The entire difference being whether the market is willing to pay more for higher quality.
**Now it all tastes like cardboard.***
As you get older your taste buds change. I used to hate fried onions, now I have no problem with them. Same for cottage cheese and spinach.
As a kid I loved candy. Not I don’t even touch it. same for coca cola. I only drink it when I eat pop corn.
I remember how home raised chicken used to taste, also pork and beef. Beef and pork is fed grain in feed yards to get the reek of wild onions and other nasties out of them to make them edible.
Farm raised chicken is fed the same thing commercial chickens are fed, although free range chickens can also pick up foods that will falvor the meat in a bad way.
Must be why I call em “Dirt Potatoes” and I can’t stand the taste.
I use red and yukon potatoes, as they are sweeter and require no butter...
I can still get stewing chickens (fowl) at a local chicken farm.
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Back at my apartment, brewing a batch of Colombian Huila fresh but off the shelf, I added the milk the way I like it.
I was blown away.
The standard "milk in a bag" tasted like fresh, out of the cow cream. It was rich, thick, slightly sweet and delicious.
I have searched here in the states and have not found comparable.
Whatever they are doing to food in this hemisphere, they are doing it WRONG.
One of the first things I ever noticed a difference in taste was, believe it or not, the packaged cold cereals. I remember as a child the corn flakes and Rice Krispies were wonderful, but then something happen probably somewhere in the 50's where the government decided we all need minerals in our cereals. Ever since then it's hard to enjoy them cause I can really taste the minerals and remember how they used to be.
Another item which tasted better years ago...Log Cabin Maple Syrup.
The little tin log cabin, sitting on my GM table and the fresh warm biscuits, (homemade of course) right out of the oven. Butter and Log Cabin Syrup...I’m in Heaven!
Over the years LC became just another bottle of sweet goo and the taste all but disappeared. Time misses no one and nothing.
Try Fry’s or Albertsons. Both still have real butchers in each store and the pork, beef, and poultry are by far better than any of the crap you get at Wally World. I live in Yuma and what meat I don’t by from the carnecerias, I buy at Fry’s or Albertsons. There is something seriously wrong with the meat at Wal-Mart.
They took the dolphin out.
One of the main reasons I choose to live in a remote area is the ability to grow my own stuff, barter for other fresh stuff, and buy free range, grass fed poultry beef and pork at a local butcher shop-no hormones, feed lot, etc. When I lived in the city because of my husband’s job, I missed the taste of natural, healthy food-growing up on a ranch, I didn’t eat any of those pasty white, tasteless chickens until I went to college.
I prefer to grill the meat I eat over charcoal, steam fresh veggies, add herbs and pepper instead of salt and some butter-which one of my neighbors has for sale/trade on most weekends.
The frankenfoods-whether animal or vegetable-just don’t have enough flavor and texture to be edible when cooked in a simple, healthy way-no wonder people chop, pound, soak, bread, fry and drench them in all sorts of flour-based sauce to give them some flavor. That also gives them enough empty calories and carbs to contribute to obesity, but I doubt most people think about that...
I have the same tastes I did in my 20’s-I’m past 60 now-and my sense of smell has always been very acute. I have always lived a drug-free lifestyle-I don’t do illicit or prescription drugs, and haven’t taken even an OTC aspirin or ibuprofen in several years. I have no idea if that is why nothing has changed, but I suspect that it may be...
I do use a homeopathic allergy remedy made from local pollen sometimes in the early Spring.
The only syrup. Made in Vermont. It's getting very, very expensive. Make cuts in other areas of your food budget, sez me. {Dark amber]
“I prefer to grill the meat I eat over charcoal, steam fresh veggies, add herbs and pepper instead of salt and some butter-which one of my neighbors has for sale/trade on most weekends.”
You are making me really hungry. Time to log-off and eat.
:-)
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