Real food - a chicken from egg to soup (not for the squeamish)

One of the many things that we love about Ecuador is the food. It is real. Real in the sense that you take something that is living, like a plant or an animal, and then you eat it. Nothing more. The only processing involved is a little cutting or grinding or mixing.  It has been marvelous to see where our food comes from and everything that happens to it, from field to dinner plate. We have also been excited to help our kids understand where food comes from, especially meat. I am probably a product of my childhood environment, but I am of the opinion that if you eat meat, you should see it actually come from an animal.  Then you can be grateful for the animal's life that was taken to prolong yours. On a side note, we also eat all our chicken on the bones, which is much tastier and real than a huge frozen chicken breast. It is a little messier to eat, I have to admit.  

Anyway, you have seen that we have chickens and pigs and guinea pigs at our place here. We eat them, and the kids know this. And they are fine with it. Actually, one day Jorie noted that some of the chickens had hatched just after we arrived, and wondered if we would be eating them before we left Ecuador.  I thought that was a great idea, for the children to see an animal from the time it was born, through the months of feeding and caring for it, and then finally eating it. Both Amy and I thought it would help the kids to be more understanding of animals and more thoughtful when they sat down to eat a nice steak or grilled chicken. 

So I asked Susana if, the next time she slaughtered a chicken, she would let me know so that we could have the kids watch and I could document it. She thought it was kind of funny, but readily agreed. So the pictures that follow are the step-by-step process of killing and dressing a chicken. Round up your kids and enjoy. 

Early that morning, Susana stuck the chicken under a barrel so that it would not eat. That way the stomach and intestine would be relatively empty and not make a mess. 

Here she has the chicken ready, holding its legs and wings down, and plucking the feathers off the neck to make a bare place to cut. 

She then slices through the neck halfway, cutting the large jugular vein and slicing through the spinal cord.

After the chicken bleeds sufficiently and stops the autonomic movement, she places the chicken in a large pot of boiling water in order to loosen the feathers.

The feathers are easily removed after dipping in the hot water, and the bird is quickly cleaned.

Bentz was feeling pretty at home with the whole slaughtering stuff, and thought that a whole bunch of recently plucked feathers would be great to play with. If this picture had sound, you would hear Amy in the background, disgusted at the blood that was still on Bentz's new toy. 

Here is the newly plucked bird, ready to be gutted. The Lopez kids thought that it was pretty funny that we wanted to take pictures of such a boring thing like getting dinner ready.

Here we are back at the all purpose sink. Yes, that is exactly the same place where you have seen Amy wash our clothes and our dishes. 

First, Susana cuts the head off and keeps it to cook. She has to cut off the outside of the beak and take out the tongue for some reason that I did not understand. 

Then she cuts off a few places from the rear that she says do not taste very good, and then proceeds to open up the back end. 

Here is the back end cut open, and it is starting to look like a turkey that you buy once a year, except this one still has all of the guts inside....

...which are then promptly removed. 

A random shot of the head, where she is trying to take out the tongue, like I mentioned earlier. Like you would imagine, there is nothing wasted. They eat everything that is edible, not just the things that we find culturally palatable. 

This is the gizzard, and the most interesting thing about a chicken. They do actually eat little pebbles, which end up in the gizzard and work to grind the corn and other grains eaten by the chicken. What Susana is cutting in this picture is the strong, dense muscle that is surrounding the pouch where the food is ground. 

When you open it up, you find a bunch of little rocks and a lot of half ground corn. 

Spread around a little, you can see the rocks. They are a lot like the little stones that line the bottom of fish tanks. 

After this, the bird is put into a pot and boiled for a few hours. Add some potatoes, carrots and seasonings, and you have an awesome stew. Delicious.