In Paris one eats the best chicken in the world; in New York, as a
rule, the worst. How do they do it in France? The answer will be given
in the chapter on French Gastronomic Supremacy; here let us anticipate
only a few details as supplied to the Government of the United States
by Newton B. Ashby, special agent of the Bureau of Animal Industry and
published in its Sixteenth Annual Report (1899).
The French, he notes, "are economic people, and the system of sending
young and immature chickens to market is not practised. The fowls sent
to market are from 4 to 8 months old. They are carefully fed and grown
for market instead of being allowed to scavenge. For instance, the
chickens are given clean water instead of being allowed the run of
filthy pools and puddles."
The method of slaughter, he goes on to say, "seems to be chiefly by
cutting the jugular vein. The fowl is then dry plucked very carefully
to prevent tearing the flesh, and is drawn through the vent."
[Illustration: How they do it in France?]
Note those last six words. They show that _the French do not allow
chickens to remain undrawn even one day_; for, as Mr. Ashby continues,
"the fowls are packed the afternoon or evening of the day of slaughter,
and despatched to Paris by special express train that night. They are
due in Paris before five o'clock in the morning. They are delivered
at once to the market, and are sold on the day of arrival, so that
French fowls are generally disposed of in the market within twenty to
twenty-four hours after being killed.... In July and August many French
fowls come to the market alive."
"The Paris markets, and French markets generally," we are further told,
"do not take kindly to foreign poultry or meat." Such poultry would of
course have to be brought in cold storage, and what the nation which
knows most about eating wants is fresh chicken. "Foreign poultry is
not in demand in Paris," because the French know and have known for
generations that to freeze meat is to spoil it. On this subject I shall
have some further remarks in a later section on the Roast Beef of Old
England.
Now look at the way much of the poultry consumed in American
cities is gathered. Dr. Cavana of Oneida, N. Y., who found no
fewer than eleven distinct groups of bacteria in the flesh
of a single undrawn fowl, remarked, in a lecture delivered
in 1906, at the Annual Convention of Railway Surgeons, that
poultry stocks are collected for eastern cities from all parts
of the country. He goes on to say that after slaughter the
feathers are removed and the carcasses packed in barrels,
generally without further dressing. The head, feet, and legs,
as well as the craw of partially digested food, therefore, is
left in the sealed cavities of the fowls, forming conditions
which force the general infection of the tissues by the
flagellated, or rapidly swimming intestinal bacteria, which
double their quantity and numbers every forty minutes, a
single bacillus being capable of developing over forty-two
billion germs in twenty-four hours. Their shipments are made
by rail and steamship, and cover transit periods of several
days before reaching the cold atmospheres of the storage
warehouses.
"To determine the activity of these germs and the period
required for their permeation of the tissues in the
slaughtered undrawn fowl, we caused to be made a series of
experiments, the results of which justify the belief that a
great percentage of the infected poultry and game stock in
storage became so infected before reaching the low temperature
of the storage warehouses."
Nor does ordinary cold storage destroy the noisome bacteria. They are
merely scotched, to revive and multiply at the first opportunity.
One of the principal objections to cold-storage poultry is that after
being taken from the storehouse they decompose much more quickly than
fresh birds.
Some dealers aggravate the evil by soaking the poultry when taken out
of storage in cold water for the purpose of thawing. This adds to its
weight, to the profit of the dealer, but it "causes heavy bacterial
infection," as Dr. Charles Harrington, secretary of the Massachusetts
Board of Health, has pointed out. Dr. Pennington, in an article on
Changes in Chickens in Cold Storage, to which we shall recur, refers
to a case in which a frozen fowl, after being immersed in water, had
increased in weight eleven per cent. (to the dealer's profit).
In Bulletin 144 of the United States Department of Agriculture we read:
"Under precisely the same conditions of temperature and
humidity, drawn fowls will keep from twenty to thirty days
longer than those not drawn. The presence of undigested food
and of excrementitious substances in animals which have been
killed most certainly favors the tainting of the flesh and
general decomposition. The viscera are the first parts to show
putrescence, and allowing these to remain within the body
cannot do otherwise than favor infection of the flesh with
bacteria and ptomaines, even if osmosis does not actually
carry putrid juices to contiguous tissues. Hunters know the
value of drawing birds as soon as possible after they have
been shot, in order to keep them fresh and sweet and to
prevent their having a strong intestinal flavor."
Read also the following weighty remarks reprinted from Senate Report
No. 1991, March 22, 1906:
The process of decomposition and putrefaction begins at once
after the death of the animal. Cold storage and freezing may
limit the rotting process, but do not entirely stop it. When
poultry or animals are taken from cold storage and are thawed
out for exhibition and sale, the decomposition continues with
marked energy, impregnating the flesh with poisons--and this
decomposition is exceedingly rapid even when the poultry is
kept in the market or grocery refrigerator, the temperature of
which is much higher than that of the cold-storage warehouse.
Flesh in which the blood has been permitted to remain is
particularly susceptible to such decomposition, and this
susceptibility is increased by the long period of freezing and
thawing.
Even with poultry which is "freshly killed" there is
frequently a period of several days between the time of
slaughtering and sale. Not only is it dangerous, but it is
repugnant to our sense of decency, that the flesh we are
to eat shall lie for several days in close contact with
putrefying animal matter.
Undoubtedly undrawn poultry, fish, and game have caused many
cases of poisoning which have been wrongfully attributed
to other sources. The poisoning resulting often resembles
that caused by other poisons administered by persons or
taken with suicidal intent. Many sufferers from digestive
troubles--headache, nausea, colic, and diarrhea after eating,
owe their ailments to tainted foods.
We are advised that the reason for slaughtering poultry
without thorough bleeding is the saving in the weight of the
fowl, and this reason is doubtless also one for the storing
of poultry and offering it for sale without removing the
viscera. There is, however, no reason why the consumer should
be compelled to purchase a large percentage of excreta,
offal, and refuse with his poultry. We would not tolerate the
addition of a certain percentage of weight in the form of
entrails of the steer with each beefsteak we buy. The consumer
purposes to buy edible food and not the disgusting waste
which should be eliminated in the process of slaughtering and
dressing. It is just as reasonable to ask the consumer to buy
hogs, calves, and lambs without the intestines removed as to
solicit his purchase of undrawn turkeys and chickens.