How much is eating local worth to you?

How far are you willing to go to eat a local, sustainably raised, organic, free-range chicken? Are you willing, for instance, to chop off its nasty little feet?

When R. and I bought my $18 chicken at the farmer's market last weekend, I was Joe Cool about the feet being on.

"Relax," I told R. "I'm not squeamish. They're just feet!"

But R. wasn't convinced. "I'll carry your asparagus and I'll carry your strawberries, but I am not carrying that thing for you," she said and turned up her nose.

Turns out R. was right. Chicken feet are mighty disgusting, and cutting them off made me a bit sick to my stomach. I'm not much of a butcher and cutting through bone is something no one but Dahmer should have to do. Blech!

I'll give you the verdict on how the chicken tastes tomorrow...

Comments

[clare eats]

ooh!
I can't imagine chopping the legs off! You are so brave catherine!
I hope it tasted good, I am sure it did :)

[sam]

Would you mind sharing the shade of nail polish the chicken used?

[cookiecrumb]

I really hope you'll get back to us on how the chicken tasted (texture too, please). We passed on getting one for ourselves, because I suspect that Marin Sun Farms is still in a learning phase on chickens.

[Kung Foodie]

LOL...This totally reminded me of the time my boyfriend and I had brunch with some neighbors who are into sustainable living. I call them the urban farmers because we live in the middle of Berkeley, but they have goats, chickens, ducks, and a huge veggie garden. For brunch they had goats milk and made scrambled eggs...of course the eggs came straight from the chicken coop and some shells still had feathers on them. My sweetie whispered in my ear that it was totally grossing him out and he couldn't eat any.

I can't say I wouldn't be a bit freaked out by butchering animals but at least I had a little bit of exposure to it growing up (lots of hunters in the family), and now my cousin is a butcher and co-owner of a smokehouse and gourmet market.

I think in some ways Americans are at a disadvantage because everything in our culture is so processed, we never really see where our food comes from or what it takes to get it to the table. SFgate had an interesting article on this (if I remember right it was titled "Close to the Bone").

[Joy]

Yeah, Jon EATS chicken feet when we go to dim sum. Not me, though. I hate regular feet, nevermind chicken feet.

[Katy at Pomelo Pleasures]

wow you are brave! I had a hard enough time just pulling out the bits bag and a few extra feathers.