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Hope this hasn't been done already .... The Mumsnet Chicken!

63 replies

serialreturner · 05/10/2020 09:09

www.mirror.co.uk/lifestyle/family/mum-feeds-family-entire-week-22750952

Couldn't believe my eyes! And I apologise for the Mirror link, clickbait got me this morning!

OP posts:
ClaudiaWankleman · 05/10/2020 12:41

I find this hard to believe, chickens take up very little space, reproduce easily, eat scraps and hens once grown pay for themselves. Much cheaper and easier than raising cows and pigs

It's true - my parents often tell me they can barely believe how much chicken we now eat and how cheap it is.

Chickens (before factory farming) actually took up a lot of space, didn't reproduce particularly virulently and required quite a lot of care. Plus, people ate a lot less meat altogether.

CMOTDibbler · 05/10/2020 12:55

Its all about portion size - if you want the meat to last you'll have a slice of breast meat each with the roast, leaving you another 5 meals or so of the other breast, thighs, wings, carcass. As a child we had roast on Sunday, cold meat with jacket pots on Monday, curried/ sweet and sour with leftover on Tuesday, rissoles made of leftover on Wednesday, and then savoury rice on Thursday with the last bits. And my parents produced their own meat (goat, lamb, baby beef, pork) so it wasn't that meat was expensive as such, just that it all counted.
We very rarely had chicken though - to get males to a size worth eating they spend most of their time trying to fight to the death, and females are better laying eggs. No one could face eating them once their laying days were over tbh

user1471538283 · 05/10/2020 13:01

I could get two dinners for two out of a chicken with a bit for a sandwich (for me with salad or cheese) and scraps for the DCats. DS is an adult with a huge appetite (especially for meat) and I don't eat a lot of meat. My parents used to get two dinners out of a chicken years ago with three of us. You would have to bulk it out with all sorts to make it stretch longer than that and the article doesn't mention other meals. By making it last a week you would think at least seven dinners.

Gingerkittykat · 05/10/2020 23:20

I think it's the Mirror's reporting that is at fault, she is not the one claiming it feeds them for a week.

She makes Spanish chicken, uses one breast for sandwiches and freezes the other one which can be used for things like fried rice.

I'm a member of a cheap cooking group and the people who stretch chickens to dozens of meals serve tiny portions and don't waste anything at all, I don't understand why Mumsnet laughs at them.

My favourite part of the chicken is making stock from the carcas to make soup, my DDs favourite is chicken and sweetcorn like you get from the Chinese takeaway.

MrsSchadenfreude · 05/10/2020 23:28

We are four adults. We would have the two breasts between four of us as a roast dinner, with roast potatoes, broccoli, carrots, parsnips and stuffing. The next day I would make either a curry or a chicken and mushroom pie with the leg meat. If I bulk it out with leeks and some ham/bacon cubes, I can make a bigger pie which will last us two days.

You can’t make decent stock with a roasting chicken as they are too young to have developed any real flavour, even if they are organic or free range. You can make a sort of chicken flavoured water. For good stock, you need a boiling chicken from a kosher butcher.

ColleagueFromMars · 05/10/2020 23:30

Yep, my parents are within living memory of chicken being rarely eaten.

Hens were fairly commonly kept in wartime for eggs, although I imagine you'd eat the hen when she went off lay. Also common for a street to keep a pig, feeding it on scraps and dividing the meat when the time came. The ministry of food put their claim in on both, I think.

IHaveBrilloHair · 05/10/2020 23:31

Years ago I mumsnetted a chicken and posted the meals, but I can't find it now.

OneEpisode · 05/10/2020 23:39

A lot of work went into the breading of the “modern chicken”, and associated processes like the expertise to identify the cockerel chicks and discard most of them after hatching. One of the projects benefiting from the Cold War investment in agriculture to beat the Ruskies. I’m trying to find the links, meanwhile I can offer you:

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Peacock#Chicken_power

HardAsSnails · 05/10/2020 23:50

Backyard hens were/are for eggs not meat.

Growing up in the 70s, chicken was a rare treat, and was eked out over several meals.

NancyBotwinBloom · 05/10/2020 23:56

That sandwich filler chicken will be off after four days max.

Bowerbird5 · 06/10/2020 00:07

Hardasnails they are but a lot of people eat them after they stop laying. I can’t bear to. I think if they have given me good eggs for a few years they deserve to finish their life naturally.

Nancy I was about to type that and your post appeared. No one else has cottoned on to the fact it would actually be dangerous to feed them for a week. The legs would be walking out of the fridge on their own!

I used to get a good few meals for myself and four kids. Roast lots of different veg so small slice of breast and a bit of leg. Next day as said chicken and mushroom pie, fracases of chicken, bones for soup with stripped chicken chopped and veg added.

IHaveBrilloHair · 06/10/2020 00:21

I found it!
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/food_and_recipes/2568385-My-Mnetted-chicken

MrsAvocet · 06/10/2020 00:33

Strangely DH and I were only discussing this topic yesterday. I seldom buy a whole chicken but got one as a substitution in my Tesco order at the weekend. I roasted it, we've had a couple of sandwiches today and I've made a soup out of the carcass for tomorrow. I reckon my Mum would have got at least one more main meal out of it, but she was born in the 20s so lived through the depression of the 30s and then rationing through WW2 and beyond and she never wasted anything. I don't think she would have used the carcass for soup with as much meat still on it as I do, there would have been a curry or a pie first. And her pies were to die for !
But what struck us was the price. It was £3 something for a large chicken. When I was a kid growing up in the 70s chicken was definitely a luxury, for special occasions only. Yet we had lamb or beef more or less every Sunday. It is the complete opposite now. We have some kind of chicken dish at least twice a week and beef is a special treat. I do normally try to buy free range chicken but even that is cheaper than most other meats. Of course it could all be about to get even cheaper and nastier once we get our post Brexit trade deal with the US.

Giganticshark · 06/10/2020 00:41

In our house we use the old saying 'mumsnet the fuck outa this chicken'.

BarbaraofSeville · 06/10/2020 06:19

I don't understand why Mumsnet laughs at them

Because Mumsnet is full of affluent people who can afford to buy as much meat as they like and are obsessed with high protein consumption.

It's quite mean really to take the piss out of people who are usually trying their best to feed their families on a tight budget.

RosieLemonade · 06/10/2020 06:45

Why are people stretching out a chicken though? It’s hardly expensive.

serialreturner · 06/10/2020 09:57

@RosieLemonade

Why are people stretching out a chicken though? It’s hardly expensive.
You're obviously well off enough - some people using food banks would no doubt disagree with you........

To all PPs who mentioned it - agreed - DM and DDad were born wartimeish and had never had chicken weekly until the 1970's - as pp mentioned, chickens were for eggs and this was an ongoing thing, whereas pork and beef were considered more accessible, though given we're all Irish it was mainly the spuds for us.

The chicken being brought to the posh table (not the kitchen) on Christmas Day was a sight to behold apparently - never mind me and my fancy M&S turkey crown.

DGM had 7 kids, DGD and half the priests from the chapel over the road to feed - I think even she'd have struggled to MN a chicken.

OP posts:
MillieEpple · 06/10/2020 10:31

i always thought that it was laughing at the affluent people telling people to 'just stretch a chicken out' in a let them eat cake way - rather than laughing at the the people trying to do their best to feed a family.
i'm pretty good at stretching my chicken out but there is a limit.

Redcrayons · 06/10/2020 10:42

A 5 year old! Let’s see how she gets on with a 17 year old who would inhale the whole chicken in one go, given half a chance.

Me and two older teens. If I did a roast, I would expect to have some leftover to make either sandwiches the next day or chicken pasta/curry. That’s if one of the DCs hasn’t sneaked back into the fridge for a ‘snack’

ColleagueFromMars · 06/10/2020 11:19

A lot of work went into the breading of the “modern chicken”

I read this as breading as in applying breadcrumbs, and wondered why so much work went into it Blush

Backyard hens were/are for eggs not meat.

Yes that was my point - but in a time of little such as wartime I can't imagine they would have kept hens that didn't lay any more, or wasted good meat. (?)

Why are people stretching out a chicken though? It’s hardly expensive.

A) It is to some people.
B) I refuse to buy cheap chickens, who will have suffered horribly in a process designed to make them as cheap as possible. Free range organic (the highest welfare standard) chickens are expensive, for me. They won't be expensive to somebody who has a much bigger income than me but they are to me. If I buy a free range chicken then why wouldn't I make it last as many meals as possible??
C) We (collectively) waste So.Much.Food. we should be thoroughly ashamed of it. I was brought up by post-war parents for whom it was totally normal to have a roast, then cold chicken sandwiches/salad, then chicken soup. To me that is a normal, full use of a chicken. Sometimes there's not enough cold chicken for everybody to have some, and I imagine there are times when there's not much left at all after a roast, but there's always the carcass for stock, and it does make the most delicious stock full of nutrients. If you don't have time/resources to bung it in the slow cooker in water with a carrot and an onion overnight, the bones will freeze until you want to use them. To me throwing away an unused carcass is the same as throwing away unused chicken breast meat. A waste, and sad.

NancyBotwinBloom · 06/10/2020 11:25

I hate wasting food.

What's the best way to get stock from the chicken carcass, do you literally just boil it until all of the meat has come off?

Then can you freeze it?

How much water do you add?

Should you add anything else like garlic etc?

diplodocusinermine · 06/10/2020 11:31

In one of her books, probably A London Child of the 1870s, Molly Hughes mentions her mother saying grace more fervently over a fowl!

They were a very rare treat even during my 1970s childhood and would be made to last 2-3 days - roast dinner on Sunday, chicken with chips and salad and cooked in gravy with potatoes and veg or in a pie on a Tuesday, then carcass boiled for soup. This was a family of 4.

DMum still has some of the dinner plates we used back then and I swear they are about half the size of the plates we use, so portion sizes were a lot smaller.

EstherLittle · 06/10/2020 11:43

@LadyofTheManners I am howling at your post!!!

My DH is a west of scotland male and could also eat a whole chicken to himself although DD1 would fight to the death before that happened.

DD2 has the appetite of an underweight sparrow but she can still manage a fair portion of chicken.

We get one meal then if I can be arsed I will make soup. Soup in the eyes of my DH is not a meal it’s a snack before your actual meal.

ColleagueFromMars · 06/10/2020 11:45

@NancyBotwinBloom

My method/"recipe" is;

Strip meat off carcass - cut into small chunks and retain. There will be bits that won't come off easily, leave them.

Into a pot/slow cooker big enough to cover it. Add a peeled/quartered onion and a sliced lengthways carrot, and maybe a celery stick broken in hhalf. I also add a bay leaf or three and salt and pepper. I also am usually making it into chicken pho soup so I add whatever off the following I have: turmeric, cloves, ginger, garlic, fennel, cardomon, coriander seeds, cumin, mustard seeds, some fresh grated nutmeg, or powder and any other hard spices i have forgotten. I don't measure and have gradually built up to more and more as I got braver, but you could start with a tablespoon of each of the above.

I give it a good slug of cider or white wine vinegar, as that helps break down the bones, and cover it all in water. Put lid on, and if in a pan bring it to a rolling boil for 30 minutes to an hour then turn it down to a simmer for several hours, checking if the water needs topping up from time to time. If in slow cooker mine has a setting that goes automatically from high to low, or you could do high for a few hours then low. The longer you can cook it for the better - if in slow cooker i do it overnight, sometimes 24 hours. If on the hob I'd say a minimum 3 hours, ideally 5 plus.

Allow to cool thoroughly. I use a sieve into a large Pyrex jug and a ladle to strain the broth out from the bones and veg. Discard bones/spices. I like to keep the veg and blend them up with some of the broth for an easy chicken/veg soup.

You can freeze the broth in batches, which I do for pho soup.

When I want to eat some pho soup, i take a bowl full of broth and heat it on the hob with a nest of dried rice noodles (available from sainsburys etc), and whatever veg i have around - stir fry veg work well, or whatever is going a bit sad in the veg drawer or freezer. Add chicken chunks you reserved, a dash of soy sauce and half a teaspoon of miso paste, and whatever else you have that you think will go well - some chopped chilli and fresh grated ginger and fresh garlic is good. You could use any other red or white meat or poach an egg in the broth. When the noodles and veg are cooked pour into a bowl and top with fresh green herbs if you have any (coriander is good with this, so is parsley) and chopped spring onions.

It is SO tasty and enjoyable!

ColleagueFromMars · 06/10/2020 11:48

Oh, a squeeze of line juice on the finished soup is also good!