A lot of people have noticed that we haven’t featured a lot of chicken here at the Linkery There’s a reason for that: while the free-range organic chickens we get from Fulton Valley Farms are very tasty, and are farmed in a manner much more responsible (and costly) than any other commercial chicken, it isn’t the best possible kind of chicken. The problem is, we couldn’t get the best possible kind of chicken — pastured chicken raised with other livestock — in San Diego.
So while we’ve kept chicken on our menu for the pollovores, we’ve been waiting to feature it prominently until we could get the best.
And you can guess why I’m writing this post.
Finally, after a lot of waiting and ironing out the logistics and regulatory issues, we are now getting local, pastured chickens from Curtis Womach of Womach Ranch.
Curtis raises a few breeds of chickens in Wynola, on Albert Lewis’ goat ranch. They share the pasture with the goats and eat the grass and bugs that grow there, and when their feed needs to be supplemented, it’s with only organic grain.
As background, industrial chicken (i.e., 99.99% of all chicken you can get in the US) is so disgusting I won’t even describe it here. “Free range organic” chickens dispense with those practices, and the chickens are raised entirely on organic feed, no pasture or live feed. “Free range organic” chickens are also raised almost entirely indoors, and don’t exercise a lot — “free range” just means they aren’t in cages and their barn has a patio they can walk onto if they want.
“Pastured chicken” means the chickens live like chickens did before industrial farming, on pasture, ideally along with other livestock. They get lots of exercise and eat a varied and live diet, both of which improve the flavor of their meat adn their eggs. Of course raising chickens this way is very expensive compared to treating them like protein machines, and since few Americans have ever experienced real chicken, up until recently a lot of people weren’t ready to pay the cost of real chicken. But as word gets out about chicken, that’s changing.
The last few weeks we’ve been eating a lot of Womach chickens at home (my favorite was a Tecate-beer-can version that Max slow cooked to medium rare over Coastal Live Oak on my grandfather’s homemade grill). I can say that if you’ve never eaten pastured chicken before, you will find that it is unlike, and way better than, any chicken you’ve ever eaten. You can find Curtis selling his chickens at the Little Italy Mercato on Saturdays, and the Hillcrest Farmers Market on Sundays.
And what does this mean to your menu when you dine with us? Well, tonite our menu includes:
* Chicken tortilla soup.
* Chicken flatbread
* A Linkery take on Buffalo wings
* Fritanga of chicken liver, hearts, and feet
* Fried Chicken noggins
Come on in, don’t be a chicken!
P.S. Come November we’ll be having some of these guys, too.
Damn, now I am *really* going to have to get myself down to San Diego soon. Just Tweeted this.
I love Womach Ranch. I started buying from Curtis last year, and have been eating exclusively Womach chickens since January. One 4-5 pound chicken per week! I’m thrilled to see my favorite farm to table and my favorite chicken guy in business together. Any chance we’ll see some Womach links on the menu?
I’m looking forward to a Womach Thanksgiving this year!
Pastured chickens are so much better. It’s amazing the difference on the plate. Keep up the good work!