Pollo en el Patio

(Please note: this is a Mark entry... :)

You know those nature shows, not the one's that take you on an undersea adventure with bioluminescent squid and tiny submarines equipped with cutting edge technology, but those shows that take you to a huge ranch in montana so you can watch a few hundred steers get tied up for slaughter. I love those shows. And they don't have to just take place on farms. Any show that takes the viewer into the heart of a factory or farm and shows how food production really takes place has always interested me. Ever since Mr. Rodgers went to the pretzel factory I've been hooked.

That's where my friend David Almonte comes into the picture. David is one of my best friends down here. He's an analyzer just like me, so we can sit on the porch and talk about anything from baseball, to theology, to cultural intricacies for hours. But that's not where the fun stops. David and his family manage multiple chicken farms. Big "fowl" smelling farms. I had to throw in the stupid comment about the smell, because his pick up truck (and occasionally he himself) carry the unmistakable odor of chicken and chicken feed. The little boy whose eyes lit up every time they replayed Mr. Rogers' visit to the pretzel factory is still very much fascinated by all of this. Not by the bad smell of David's truck, but by getting to visit a chicken farm and find out how it all works. On a couple of occasions I've headed out with David to see their operations. I've seen the big pens where they all just eat and fatten up at an incredible rate, and I've also gotten to visit where they mix up the feed. It's a potent mixture of ground corn, vitamins, and recycled grease from deep fryers. According to David the stuff is imported from the U.S. Makes you proud to be an American, huh?

So where am I headed with all of this? Great question. Last Friday afternoon David showed up at my house with a little plastic pen packed with ten ugly chickens. They were only six or so weeks old, but each weighed about 4 lbs. Their adult feathers weren't even fully grown in yet, but they were ready for slaughter. After seeing this, the whole concept of free range chickens makes even less sense to me. These animals grow faster than the corn they eat, so why the special treatment?

After unloading the ten chickens from the back of David's truck I created a little jerry rigged pen out on our back patio. We gave them some feed and set out some water dishes, and they were happily back to eating and huddling in a little ball. Originally my friend Frank and I had planned to slaughter the whole bunch on Friday night, but we decided against it. At first I was a little disappointed, but after smelling them and holding them the little bit that I did, I had no more complaints. So on Saturday afternoon Frank and a friend picked them up and transported them to the barrio where a lot of the kids on our soccer team live. One of the moms out there did the dirty work and plucked and butchered the whole bunch. On Sunday afternoon after practice we headed out to the barrio and had a big chicken lunch with rice, beans, and all the other good Dominican fixin's. It was a great opportunity to visit the kids in their homes and get to know some of their parents. And the chicken was finger licking good.