Gender politics of eating a roast chicken!!

[ColdOopNorth]

Apologies in advance if this is the wrong place to ask and it seems rather trivial but.... I come from a traditional Northern family and I am in my 50's. I have always , from early childhood, believed that it is 'normal' when carving a roast bird to give the men the legs and the women get the breast! This was 'the rule' growing up, my husband took this as normal too and I never ever questioned why until my non-British friends came for lunch and thought it was the most weird, bizarre thing ever and are still talking about it weeks after. Is this a thing for anyone else and any idea why? I suspect it is to do with men being allowed to pick up the leg and gnaw on it whilst us 'ladies' are far too refined - just goes to show how deeply ingrained some of these stereotypes are eh

Oh my god yes! This was totally a thing in my house growing up, I had never really thought about it until now! My dad always got the legs and when we go to my parents my mum always gives DH a leg too and we get the breast.

The males always got served first as well, and still do sometimes when we go to my parents for dinner although we do mention it now and take the piss a bit!

I'm northern and have never heard of this. Or any other food division based on anything but people asking for their own preference.

I've come across this too. It's definitely a thing!

I'm Irish and my father is a farmer but he always ate the legs. In fairness, it's probably because none of the rest of us didn't like the brown meat. My mother could match him in terms of amount of food consumed and has been obese all her life. A lady portion might have been better for her. I don't have a huge appetite and would probably eat what most would consider a child's portion.
In my 2 adult, one child household, the child was served first - mainly because she's the most important person to me and I want her to have the nicest and best bits to be sure she'll eat it. Then I'd serve myself and DH would go last.

This is how I remember chickens being carved up when I was a kid and I'm also northern.

Now I'm a grown up I have the legs and DH has the breasts though.

My husband tried to pretend he was being all chivalrous giving me the breast...no fella, everyone knows the crispy bits are the nicest! We tried to pull that one on our little daughter but she has also copped on now so we all compete for wings and the end of the legs, then dark meat. Everyone gets a share. DH gives me the oysters...we both like them so I appreciate it. Willingly handing the nicest, crispiest piece of anything- the crusty edge of a bit of lasagne, the perfect bit of bacon rind- over in our house ( rather than defending it with a sharp fork) is about the most significant expression of love possible. Makes me feel like those swans that mate for life and die heartbroken across their lover's corpse in the end.

Now I'm a grown up I have the legs and DH has the breasts though.

We still talking about chickens?

I’m a breast lady myself. As is DH. Neither of us like legs or wings, we buy crowns!

Something that has come up in this thread is “penis portions” and how it pisses some posters off because it implies sexism, it used to piss me off too, until I realised that matching my DHs food portions meant I put on 3 stone !! It’s taken my body a long time to re learn the correct portions I need, and i actually think we need to encourage people to me more aware of the physical differences between men and women - women (in general) do need less calories than men. Obviously there will be exceptions to this rule- female athletes in training vs man on diet etc, but it’s really unhelpful to just write off the idea that men need to eat more than women because it’s sexist - technically it is sexist because male and female nutritional needs are different but it’s biology that’s set that up, not society, maybe reframing it as ‘nutritional requirements’ rather than ‘penis portion’ would help ?

I agree. I always give my husband a bigger portion because he is bigger than me and needs more calories.

The conclusion to this seems to be that it isn’t a Northern thing but a sexist family thing.

Denying biology has got us into quite a mess, so yes, I’d like to see a bit more recognition of different calorific requirements etc. I’d love to be able to order a small medium or large meal in a resto....

@Stripesgalore

The conclusion to this seems to be that it isn’t a Northern thing but a sexist family thing.

Nope!

The conclusion is that sometimes its a load of sexist claptrap.

Other times it's sensible, based in physiological reality!

I'm from SE England and agree this was the norm when I was growing up (but I always presumed it was due to personal preference).

Now, DH and DD1 have breast, I have leg and thigh and DD2 has leg.

I don't remember anyone in my family eating the legs, I wonder where they went. Now me and DP do it 'backwards' I quite enjoy the legs and he hates any meat on a bone so only has breast. If we have guests it all gets carved onto a serving dish and people can help themselves to whatever bit they want.
As a side note to those saying the dogs get the wings please don't give your dogs cooked chicken bones. It is dangerous as they splinter so easily.

Other times it's sensible, based in physiological reality!

That might be a valid argument if there weren't the calories of the rest of the roast dinner to consider (why not have more potatoes, or breast plus wing if you need more), plus the relative amount of meat on a leg vs a breast, which would probably cancel out any extra calorie advantage in leg meat vs breast meat.

What is the physiological reality of a leg and a breast here? The nutritional difference must be minimal.

To be honest I am not even sure what physiological reality means. Is there a physiological fantasy?

Physiology is real.

Very odd but some traditions are pretty old. As children (and now with our own children) we've always given everyone the breast meat but only the adults who like it the leg meat (as well). I would never give children anything with bones, and they prefer the breast meat anyway.

Although having said that I've recently switched to using thigh fillets in the slow cooker as they're much tastier than the breast meat.

What if there are three 'men' and one woman at the table?

(and no cat)

OK!!

Average chicken portion is 70 - 100 grams

85g skinless, chicken breast provides about 140 calories, 3 grams of total fat and just 1 gram of saturated fat.

85g skinless dark chicken meat has three times the amount of fat, 9 grams of total fat, 3 grams of saturated fat and 170 calories.

Add portion sze to that and the kcals mount up - a leg is about 350g; a breast about 600. One man would probably eat the whole leg, one breast would get shared, probably. My memories of a family Snday lunch are of 2 men eating a leg each, 2 women and 2 kids sharing the breast meat.

Physiological realities Really? Working class, heavy industry, pits mines, factories; male bodies being bigger, more muscle on average needeing more kcals even when resting.

That's the reality of physiology rather than the "all things should be far and equal" thinking that makes no sense in some circumstances.

And all the women on this thread (and in real life) who experienced this a) had fathers in heavy manual labour jobs b) shared out the breast meat as you describe c) had families who definitely decided these things based on actual physiology, not unquestioned tradition and outdated sexist stereotypes? Sure.

Men get served first, asked what they want, then children, then the women get what's left
There is no context to this statement.

This doesn't happen in my expierence. I can't recall it from my childhood either. I remember my nan ( dad's mum) being a bit of a feeder and giving my mum huge portions ' because she needs a bit more meat on them thin bones!'

@ApolloandDaphne "and the dog gets the skin."

Possibly the most shocking thing I've read yet.

I too was shocked and it triggered a bad memory.

I was visiting my dad for a week, I did a leg of lamb in the slow cooker and did veg and roast potatoes, I did lots of potatoes so that I could freeze meat and potatoes in single portions for my dad.

O got up on the morning, made a coffee, my dad got up, went to make himself tea.

I went into the kitchen to start plating up the left over meat and potatoes and the potatoes had gone. My dad had binned them!

I mean who bins roast potatoes? Proper home made in beef dripping roast potatoes?

I'll tell you who would bin them, the same person who would give the dog chicken skin.

To be honest I am not even sure what physiological reality means. Is there a physiological fantasy?

Did you see, 'back in time for tea'? A family of 2 parents and 2 children, one breakfast consisted of a single rasher of bacon and some bread. The bacon was fried and then pressed into the bread to give it a taste for mum and children, dad got the actual bacon because he was working in a mine.

It was def historic sexism in our house. My family always took sexism seriously.