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Real Maryland Fried chicken

Dave Hawksford

Dave Hawksford

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Outside the beltway
One day riding bikes as kids 7 or 8 years old down a friends farm dirt drive a chicken ran across the road, she didn't make it. The kid infront of me hit his break the chicken s head came off as the locked up rear wheel took her neck to the dirt. So the kid grabbed the chicken and I think there were 4 of us standing at the old side door. He called his mom , showed her the chicken and she said looks like you boys are having fried chicken for lunch. That's the 1st time I can remember having country fried chicken.
 
I've had the pleasure of taking the life for many chickens as a kid and teen... usually when we were planning a chicken dinner, it was my job to catch and kill the chicken... also to pluck it so mom could singe the pin feathers and cut it up for dinner... did I mention that I hate the smell of wet feathers.... when she would let me I always skinned the chicken.

BTW, being from Texas we always had Southern Fried Chicken...
 
They were meat on the foot, didn't require refrigeration, butcher and eat the same day. We have eliminated the plucking, boiling and singeing process by skinning our chickens. Memories, they pop up at the weirdest of times from the smallest of thoughts, sights and smells.
 
Chuck the 1st place I was ever allowed to hunt on my own, I was 15 just got my drivers lic. My dad friend who owned a large farm would let me hunt. He told me about a smaller farm he owned and there was a very old couple who live in the very old small house there and said there are lots of rabbits there. Man there were I'd always walk away with a few . Well it was Christmas eve and the old guy , who was old country welfare veteran came out as I drove up. We got to talking and I remember him saying: son your pretty good with that shot gun think you can shoot the head off that old rooster back there ? He's a might tricky and I haven't been able to catch him. I told him I'll go get him for ya. I snuck around the old chicken barn spotted him as he spotted me at about 5 yards . Needless to say he didn't have to deal with the head.
 
I can remember visiting my Grandparents and an hour or so before dinner grandma would come out with her apron on. She'd sprinkle a little feed on each side of her feet. Of course the chickens in the yard would come running. She'd reach down and grab a couple by the head and twist them around like nun chucks. This sit down and proceed to pluck them.

Mom always had a small hatchet for the deed.
 
My poor school teacher dad "experimented" with raising about fifty free range chickens in a big fenced in yard on a piece of borrowed farm pasture across the road from our house. My younger siblings used to chase them around the pen trying to catch one to pet, so they became quite skittish. I wasn't around when they got butchered, but according to my mom, they were the scrawniest, toughest, stringiest most worthless critters that ever roamed the earth. She had a bunch in the freezer that she purposely kept until they got so freezer burned they had to be tossed out.:D
 
Back in the 50's my uncle was a farmer in Illinois, my aunt had laying hens in a fenced in area. One year my uncle decided to raise chicken for meat and had a bunch of chicken in an other area away from the laying hens. I don't remember how many as I was fairly young (10 or 11) but it seems like at least 100 (ok maybe 50). anyhow one summer he decided it was time to butcher em all at once so he got together several of the family members, my mom and dad, aunts and uncles and cousins set up a large scaffolding and a chopping block and we proceeded to have a family chicken harvest. the kids were relegated to capturing the birds and bringing the bird to one of the men who would wire their feet together with bailing wire and chop off their heads. The headless chicks would then flop around the barnyard and we the kids would fetch em and take em to the women who would drop em in boiling water hang em up and pluck em. They were then gutted and wrapped for freezing. The whole family had plenty of chicken to take home and oh ye we had a fried chicken dinner that night also..... ahhhh the memories of youth...lol
 
My grandfather raised chickens for meat too... but instead of chasing them about the yard, he would pen them at night and put them in a coop for the next day... he tied their feet together over a clothes line, then cut their heads off with his pocket knife... saved them flopping around the yard in the dirt... he and grandmother would do 20 or so a day. They didn't have a freezer, so they had a locker in the back of one of the grocery stores in town that rented space to people to keep their meet... a big walk in freezer about 30 x 30.... it was cold in there.
 
Back in the 50s when I was a kid, I spent a lot of time with my great uncle who lived next door to my grandparents. He raised chickens and pigeons. To this day, I can smell the 'aroma' produced by plucking feathers from the chicken after dipping the body in a tub of scalding water!!! What a memory for a kid of about age ten!

Of course, the funny part was the prelude when my uncle chopped the head off the chicken. He had a block of wood outside his garage and a hatchet for the deed. One whack and the poor chicken still ran around seemingly forever with no head. A first-hand demonstration of 'running around like a chicken with its head chopped off'!
 
I remember back when I was a kid, we'd go to the grocery store and buy our chickens ready to cook.

[It's OK...I'll show myself out.] :rofl:






My dad's family always had chickens when he was growing up, so I've heard a lot of his chicken butchering stories. Closest I ever got was watching him and my granddad butcher hogs a couple of times.
 
Ive eaten fried chicken in 20 states, none of them come close to the southern states. Mississippi, no matter where we went, the fried chicken was perfect, New Orleans, again, incredible. not sure why the northeast hasnt figured it out yet.
 
seems like i missed out on all of the fun, being a city kid and all. but, the best fried chicken i've ever tried, came from a newer place up here, called pollo campero. it's a fried chicken of a guatamalan recipe, waaaayyyyy better than kfc.
 
Bill Arnold said:
Of course, the funny part was the prelude when my uncle chopped the head off the chicken. He had a block of wood outside his garage and a hatchet for the deed. One whack and the poor chicken still ran around seemingly forever with no head. A first-hand demonstration of 'running around like a chicken with its head chopped off'!
Click to expand...

I must be dyslectic.... I've always said "running around like a head with the chicken cut off.":D:D
 
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