I suddenly saw supermarket chickens as a gross manifestation of disconnect, disharmony, and disillusionment, and I realized I didn’t want to cook with them or feed them to anyone. I didn’t want to eat these dismembered family packs, priced artificially low because of federal subsidies and political clout, and raised as protein units with no consideration for the short and sad lives of the birds. Even the full-color photographs in glossy food magazines turned my appetite off once I peered behind the curtain of how those disembodied parts were raised, how they got there, what they’d been fed, and how far they had traveled.
Once You Know
I’d had enough, and so had my appetite. “Once you know, you can’t not know.” Then the corollary arises: “And once you know, you can’t not do something about it.” Amen. Crossing these great divides of disconnects means gaining knowledge to overcome helplessness, anger, frustration, and disgust, and turning them into positive action.
So what’s one thing to be done about factory farming? Even if you and I stopped eating meat, the problem would not disappear. For me, the antidote to the negatives is to do something of worth. Connect the dots in a new and healthier way. Draw functionally beautiful constellations among land, farmer, animal, humane slaughter and processing, market, and family dinner table.
Much stems from the kitchen, after all — a powerful and nurturing place. It’s where we feel comfortable and where we go to be comforted. It’s where I go to sort things out, and it’s by far the best room of the house. Everyone seems to end up there even when there’s a dining room ready to receive. But all cooks worth their salt know that their food is only going to be as good as the ingredients they start with.
A farmer can raise the hell out of a flock of chickens. She can give them a good life: fresh air, with room to spread their wings and be hen-social, to eat, scratch, and peck at grubs and bugs and grass and weeds and grain. To drink fresh water. She can protect them from raccoons, coyotes, rats, skunks, dogs, hawks, and the weather — heat waves, cold snaps, downpours, and spring squalls. Yes, a farmer can raise many healthy, happy chickens expressing their chicken-ness. But if the slaughter goes awry then it all means nothing.
There is nothing cool about killing chickens. It is a messy business. Like anything human, it can be honorable, dignified, and in accord with nature, or it can be brutal, inhumane, a butchery. An irresponsible slaughter is a horrific thing, whether it takes place in a backyard, on a farm, from a mobile unit, or within the walls of a brick-and-mortar slaughterhouse. “Local food” is not inherently better if it’s not taken care of from its beginning through to its end.
Any good and humane slaughter system, whether mobile or in a building, is only as good as the people involved. I would never justify any slaughter and processing system that is inhumane or hidden from view, that lacks full transparency, or that results in unwarranted harm to animal, person, land, or food.
Postcard from an Island
Martha’s Vineyard is a 100-plus-square-mile island off Cape Cod in Massachusetts. Shaped like a squashed triangle, it is a patchwork of six towns and the lands of the Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head. It is a beautiful island of beaches, public conservation lands, rolling hills, stone walls, and open working fields with a few wind turbines, and it is a wonderful place to raise a family. There is not one McDonald’s, strip mall, or big-box store.
The Vineyard’s Circumstances
The media depict the Vineyard in airbrushed postcards of lighthouses and gingerbread cottages, populated by boldfaced names. The island is not all rich and famous, however, nor is it all about hobnobbing with the political and cultural elite. According to the Island Plan, Dukes County (comprising Martha’s Vineyard and the neighboring island of Gosnold) is one of the poorest counties per capita in Massachusetts.
From September to May it is a rural, diverse community. An estimated 16,000 people live here year-round, working for a living, sending their kids to school, going to the grocery store the way people do everywhere. Its demographic is an ever-evolving mix based on New England Yankee, Portuguese, African-American, and Wampanoag roots. Recently it has experienced a strong influx of Brazilian immigrants.
In the summer months, the island population swells to a tightly wound 100,000, creating serious pressure on roads, movie theaters, and restaurants — and testing the nerves of the year-rounders who nevertheless depend on these tourists’ dollars for their livelihood. For it is the seasonal spending during these “one hundred days of summer” that many people count on to carry them through the rest of the year.
Local Food in Demand
Despite its tony reputation, the Vineyard’s culture is intricately woven with stalwart and independent fishing and farming traditions. Islands seem to attract the self-reliant and self-sufficient, and this one is no different: it is home to a thriving grassroots population and innovative local food initiatives. Since one lives and dies by the boat, the threat of being cut off from the mainland makes one think long and hard about where food comes from.
The increasing demand for local food is combined with a strong agricultural history and well-established land conservation efforts that include agricultural restrictions. As a result, a good share of the family farms and open working spaces have resisted cashing out to development pressures that could cover fertile soils with more second or third vacation homes.
Currently there are about 30 small or micro farms on the Vineyard, and about 935 acres of private and conservation lands are in food production (as reported by the Agricultural Self-Sufficiency Report, Martha’s Vineyard Commission, 2010). Established farmers as well as the USDA-classified “socially disadvantaged farmers” and “beginning farmers” make up the agricultural scene, raising and selling raw milk, cheese, eggs, produce, mushrooms, flowers, meat (from beef to rabbit), and poultry. The number of backyard growers producing more of their own food is also on the rise, in line with national trends.
Given the Vineyard’s high profile and high summer population, the island presents unique marketing opportunities for its small, agriculturally diverse community. It’s comparable to urban farming, in that direct sale and wholesale markets are all within a 15-mile radius. The natural boundaries of shoreline and saltwater encourage interesting solutions in an evolving and resilient local food system. Strategies and solutions such as the MPPT can be case studies or models for rural communities anywhere. (See Mapping Your Own Island, page 38.)
Getting On and Off the Island
There is no bridge or tunnel to Martha’s Vineyard; traveling off-island is generally by car ferry. The actual crossing of Vineyard Sound takes 45 minutes, but with buying a ticket, waiting in line, and disembarking, the five-mile trip takes twice that long — that is, when the winds, tides, and visibility are all favorable. The ferry shuts down or runs on a delayed, trip-by-trip basis when conditions dictate, stranding farmers, trucks, food, supplies, and livestock on both island and mainland.
For islanders, the prohibitive costs of livestock transport — boat fees, fuel, and time away from the farm — create logistical challenges that cut into already slim profit margins. It’s no wonder that few farmers manage to raise animals beyond what they put in their own freezers. Some have even adjusted their livestock and slaughter cycles based on seasonally fluctuating ferry fees.
In addition, livestock (with the exception of poultry) must be crated or secured in trucks the night before early-morning departures. You don’t want to miss that boat, after you scored a slaughter date at one of the densely scheduled slaughterhouses within reasonable driving distance. With four-legged livestock, you then drive as far as 250 miles to a USDA-inspected slaughterhouse. For cows, sheep, lambs, pigs, and goats, two round trips off-island are necessary: first to drop off the animals and a second time with the requisite refrigeration to pick up the frozen roasts, loins, chops, and burgers, wrapped in butcher paper or plastic. If you want bacon, a third or fourth round trip to the smokehouse may be necessary. After all that, you may be disappointed
by the sorry or inconsistent state of the butchery and the quality of the cuts.
Long-distance travel is stressful for animals. Stress in turn diminishes the quality of the meat. When an animal is stressed, chemicals flood its body, causing metabolic changes in the muscles. Fear, loud noises, excessive temperatures, unpredictable motion, bad handling (catching and loading, for example) combine to reduce meat quality, color, and texture.
Market Snapshot
The Vineyard has three seasonal farmers’ markets. The summer markets are popular with tourists, and the winter markets with locals, and the farmers get those direct sales dollars. There are also five year-round, locally owned, independent grocers and two Stop and Shops.
Sadly, food insecurity exists here as it does across the country. The Island Food Pantry is open three times a week from September to April. In recent years it has seen record numbers of people coming through the doors for basic provisions like canned soup, beans, cereal, tuna fish, and peanut butter.
Price Point
Local specialty or not, meat that’s poorly packaged, labeled, and displayed will be one tough sell, especially when the price is higher and people are looking for good value. It may be possible to sell locally grown meat or chicken once or twice, but if it doesn’t taste good at the dinner table you won’t have many repeat customers.
An island-grown chicken costs between $5.00 and $6.00 a pound. It’s expensive but absolutely different from a cheaper commodity chicken in many ways, including the qualities that are by far the most important to the eater — taste and texture.
We’re still not meeting all the challenges in this local poultry system to make chicken reach the general market with a price point competitive to a commodity bird’s. That’s virtually impossible in the current system of agriculture subsidies, particularly with grain. It’s nearly a miracle that we have local chicken available at all, much less in the local grocery store. (See Local Grocer + Local Chicken = True Cost of Food, page 80.) But some people are working on making this healthier meat more accessible in terms of price, and they’re getting it done. (See Comfort Food, page 125). True change in local meat systems will take place only when federal policies, legislation, regulations, and direct payments shift toward better support for the small local agriculture enterprises.
A Cook’s Wishbones
When two people hold both ends of a bird’s clavicle and pull, legend has it, a wish will come true for the one left holding more bone. I never could bring myself to snap a wishbone that way: they’re just too elegant and intriguing. Call me a different kind of superstitious, but I keep those chicken bones close. There are Mason jars of dried ones in my office for inspiration and in my kitchen for memories of meals shared. Some are turkey — big and hefty. Some are asymmetrical, lopsided even, and some are simply delicate and whimsical as if they’d blow away in a breeze. It’s an amazing variety — a testament to chicken breeds and farming methods, I suppose.
Island farmers have given me a few wishbones, too. My family knows to set them aside when we eat local birds. But there’s a special one that hangs on a nail in my kitchen window.
The wishbone belonging to Permit #417, the first MPPTed bird that my family ate, hangs like a relic, an homage, and a talisman to food, cooking, and the kitchen. That bone grew inside the body of a Cornish Rock Cross that had been pasture-raised and humanely slaughtered on a farm five miles from my home. That bird’s waste fertilized the soil. It was humanely handled in a slaughterhouse with no walls by people who were trained and skilled in matters of animal health and welfare, and in the transforming processes that turn animal into raw and ready-to-cook meat.
I paid a fair and real price for that bird and handed my money directly to the farmer.
I paid a fair and real price for that bird and handed my money directly to the farmer. All the transactions along the way were done in the full light and full acknowledgment of the regulatory agencies in my state of Massachusetts. Nothing was done under the radar in some underground local meat black market. And there was nothing to feel but pride and dignity in this construct that fostered the land, the farmer, and the eater.
I cooked that bird from pasture to stockpot. It was one tasty, tasty roast chicken. The animal’s final encore — its simmered-dry and picked-over bones — went into the compost and back to the land.
Except, that is, for its wishbone.
Permit #417 Chicken
The following recipe is for a chicken that roasts up golden, flecked with salt, ground pepper, and dried thyme. It’s cooked in an iron skillet on top of a box spring of celery, onions, carrots, and lots of garlic. A squeeze of lemon, some drizzled olive oil — it’s unfussy. I don’t even truss the legs. Permit #417 is served with fingerling potatoes roasted with the chicken or mashed potatoes and butter, greens, crusty bread for dipping in the drippings, and a jammy red wine.
Depending on how many people I’m feeding, I can get three or four meals out of one 4- to 5-pound bird: first the roast; then the pickings off the carcass for a pasta dish, soup, or chicken salad. Finally, I put the bones in my stockpot along with an onion, a couple of celery stalks, a peeled carrot roughly chopped, a bay leaf, and a smattering of peppercorns. I’ll let this simmer until I’m satisfied that the water is imbued with all the chicken-ness it can hold.
While it’s still hot I pour it through a colander into a large bowl. After it’s strained, the tangled remains of bone, cartilage, skin, and spent vegetables are tossed and turned into compost. I offer my dog a few tidbits. Finally, I pour or ladle the broth into Mason jars and set them to cool in the fridge. The chicken fat will rise to the top and congeal, sealing it like a lid until I need the stock for another meal.
Recipe for Permit #417 Roast Chicken
Though my family has saved a whole Mason jar’s worth of wishbones in the years since the MPPT arrived, none of the chickens tasted as sweet as Permit #417. But there was no recipe for this dish when this culinary adventure began in my own backyard.
1. Start by building a slaughterhouse. You need only a small one: one that fits on the back of a 10' x 15' landscaper’s trailer like a hillbilly Rubik’s cube so it can be towed from farm to farm by a small pickup truck.
2. Gather your ingredients. The main one is community — your farmers, regulators, grocers, chefs, eaters. Take the initiative, form an alliance. Communicate regularly with your community.
3. Research poultry slaughter, humane slaughter, animal welfare, and local state and regulatory agencies that hold a vested interest.
4. Be transparent.
5. Stand strong.
6. Attend local food system conferences to connect with others and share ideas.
7. Acquire the equipment you need, and find and train your crew professionally.
8. Advocate for the right to raise food, to sell it, and to feed your family clean, safe, fair, humanely raised and slaughtered poultry.
9. Stand up respectfully to adversaries and nay-sayers.
10. Save your wishbones along the way.
11. Turn to page 110 on how to cook that lovely chicken. Your first permitted bird will taste the sweetest.
12. Return the bones to the soil.
Chapter 1
Start Here, Get Organized
The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposing ideas in mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function. One should, for example, be able to see that things are hopeless yet be determined to make them otherwise.
— F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Crack-Up
The mobile poultry processing trailer or MPPT, owned and managed by the nonprofit Island Grown Initiative (IGI), was developed because of these early observations:
If local farmers in our area wanted to run a poultry slaughterhouse, or get the permit from the state themselves, they’d be doing it already and there’d be no need for any other slaughter/processing option. But they didn’t, and they weren’t.
If local farmers had a commercial pou
ltry slaughterhouse that was accessible, affordable, and convenient, they’d be raising broilers as a substantial part of their growing plans. But they didn’t, and they weren’t.
Many other mobile poultry processing units (MPPUs) or mobile slaughter units (MSUs) in the country were overbuilt, meaning they were too expensive or were being underutilized by the farmers they were meant to serve because of management and training issues. Many are now shelved, or they have cost so much in outlay that it’s doubtful they’ll ever be financially sustainable.
Beginning Where You Are
Look at your food web from egg to roast chicken. Notice how it involves the environment, economics, policy, regulations, politics, people, birds, slaughter/processing, the kitchen, and the compost pile.
Put your local chicken at the top of a diagram. Now ask yourself, who and what make up the web around your Gallus gallus domesticus?
What will it take to get your chicken from the brooder to the stockpot? Consider the following. In order to support the MPPT you need:
The Mobile Poultry Slaughterhouse Page 2
