It’s been too long since I’ve made the staple of Hungarian diets, chicken paprikas. That’s because I generally avoid chicken and pork, which is a personal preference in line with having a B blood type; I’ll talk about that some other day. Chicken is popular in Hungary, particularly in the rural villages where they do not have many other animals. My Grandma told me that starting when she was about four years old, her job was to feed and care for the chickens. After her morning duties, her mother would treat her to a piece of bread with jam on it.
I remember my Grandma cleaning a whole chicken. First she showed me to light a match and burn off any little hairs that were left from the feathers. Then she showed me the slime on the meat and said to rinse it in cold water “to get off all the hormones.” It became apparent to me why she thought American chickens were raised on hormones when I went to Hungary to her hometown of Rabapotana. At the relative’s where I ate dinner, they raised chicken in the yard which we had for dinner, and it had the tiniest little chicken parts I’d ever seen. A chicken leg there is the length of a chicken wing here.
Chickens are huge here because they are cross-bred and fed to quickly grow to their largest size, and the antibiotics added to factory chickens’ feed increases the sliminess. I’ve discussed the antibiotics and chicken bacteria before but, although it may have been safe back on the farm, people should not wash American factory chickens. Washing the chicken splashes campylobacter and salmonella pathogens on your sink, and things around it including you.[1] Testing has shown that washing doesn’t get you a cleaner chicken. Bacteria recovered from a 10th chicken rinse were similar to those from the first rinse.[2] Some people actually run their chicken through the wash cycle of their dishwasher – I’m serious, I read people suggesting it online. Instead of washing a factory chicken, I recommend getting a chicken from a local farm and then just pat the chicken off with a paper towel and, of course, cook thoroughly as I will do tomorrow.
[1] “Washing chicken could wreck your health for years: It’s not just tummy upsets – spreading bacteria in the kitchen can cause arthritis, eye pain and nerve damage,” Cara Lee, Daily Mail; June 16, 2014. www.dailymail.co.uk
[2] “Distribution of Attached” Salmonella typhimurium cells Between Poultry Skin and a Surface Film Following Water Immersion,” H.S. Lillard, US Dept. of Agriculture
Journal of Food Protection, June 1986, 49:6, 449-454.
