I made a cake this afternoon, one that required two sticks of butter, two cups of sugar, and five eggs. (It's the Bishop's cake from the Silver Palate - a pound cake that died and went to heaven.) Of the five eggs, four of them were fertilized. Now, I don't know about you, but I prefer my chicken as an entree. I wasted precious minutes of my life trying to extract tiny dead chickens from my egg whites.
Then I looked at the egg carton. I don't know where I picked these up, but they came from someplace called "Holistic Farms." No kidding? What exactly is a holistic farm, anyway?
Where I come from, chickens are nasty, mean, terminally stupid, foul-smelling birds that taste mighty fine with noodles. This animal is so stupid it doesn't need its brain to stay alive. It might bleed to death if you cut its head off, but it might not die.
Restrain them in little cages, please. Don't let them poop on each other, but keep them locked up and away from roosters. Trust me: they'll be just as happy either way.
Sunday, November 11, 2007
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
12 comments:
"nasty, mean, terminally stupid, foul-smelling...Restrain them in little cages, please. Don't let them poop on each other, but keep them locked up...Trust me: they'll be just as happy either way."
What's uncanny is this is the same argument I make regarding the elderly.
GPop buys eggs from companies that claim their chickens are "free range." I've given up trying to imagine that the chickens are communist lesbians who own the farm collectively and barter their eggs at the local farm market. Now I'm starting to wonder how free range chickens keep their little cowboy hats on.
Chickens can be free-range without involving roosters. Who knows, full spectrum daylight might make them healthier and put more trace elements into the eggwhites, thus making the eventual consumer a tiny bit healthier.
Purely out of academic interest, how much flour goes into that pound cake?
Actually, the free-range eggs ARE healthier- they're a lot higher in omega-three fatty acids, which are Good. Brighter yellow yolk = good sign, bright orange = better sign.
That said, whoever is running that farm is retarded if the rooster is mixing in with the hens that much.
I must say, I admire your fortitude in actually picking out all those little chicken fetuses (fetii?). I probably would have thrown the fertilized eggs away.
Then again, I buy the cheap eggs from chickens that never touch dirt. I'm way too poor to pay three times as much for eggs that come from happy chickens, although I wish I could.
Bishop's cake recipe:
Cream 2 sticks of sweet butter with 2 cups of sugar. Measure 2 cups of flour and then sift it; add to the butter and sugar and mix until just blended. Add 1 teaspoon vanilla and 1 Tablespoon fresh lemon juice. Add five eggs one at a time, mixing well after each egg.
Put the batter into a greased and floured bundt pan, and bake in a 350F oven for an hour and 15 minutes. Cover the cake with foil after the first 30 minutes. A toothpick inserted in the middle should come out clean.
Cool for 10 minutes on a rack and then remove the cake from the pan and let it cool completely.
I serve it with rumpot and dusted with powdered sugar. Easy as pie, and fabulously tasty.
Why did you think they were fertilized? Spots of blood don't actually indicate fertile eggs, contrary to popular belief, but are just bits of blood that get incorporated into the egg during its transit through the hen. Here's more: http://www.wsu.edu/DrUniverse/eggs4.html
Anonymous, I wasn't removing spots of blood. I was removing little chickens - visible embryos.
Idiot professor. When you are dealing with your cancer it will be clear to you that all animals are capable of suffering, even cruel humans like you.
hahahaha
You know, I wonder about people who make statements like that. Do they honestly think that that's going to convince anyone at all? Personally, it just causes me to laugh hysterically, and say 'nutjob!'
Some people in Germany did research on what chicken 'like' most. They defined 'like' as 'what makes chicken healthy', not in the more common sense of 'what well-meaning humans like to see.' They found that the best solution (if we want to keep chicken) would be two-story cages for a small number of hens. The second story is for the hens to hop upstairs to sleep.
Chickens can be happy, nice, and clean instead of mean and smelly. Chickens walking around outside in a decent amount of space are clean and much nicer. And healthier! I do agree than fertilized eggs are yucky.
Free-range eggs come from chickens that are less crowded and can walk around instead of being put in tiny little cages. Chickens do have to have a rooster around to lay eggs, but the rooster doesn't have to be right with the chickens. So free range eggs do not have to be fertile. Chickens have minds, and social systems, and can feel pain.
It is no surprise that I buy unfertilized eggs from free-range hens, and when I can, chickens who walk around outside instead of in barns.
Post a Comment