Heritage Foods

Heritage foods are also called artisan or artisanal foods.  Slow Food’s Ark of Taste, contains several New England candidates, including a quince and a chicken.  Meech’s Prolific Quince, originally discovered in Connecticut around 1850, is rarely grown today.  In fact, I’ve not discovered the variety in any nursery catalogue.  According to reports, the highly fragrant fruit resembles pineapple. 

The second nominee is Rhode Island Red chickens.  These well-tempered birds, developed in the 1880s, were once the best-know breed in the world.  Their tawny to dark brown feathers and bright red comb represents the universal chicken in children’s storybooks.  Remember the Little Red Hen? 

Members of the breed are good layers, producing over 200 eggs a year.  Also good in the pot, Rhodys produce deeply flavorful chicken dinners.  Rhode Island Reds, once ubiquitous, are now rare.  The American Livestock Breeds conservancy estimates fewer than 2,500 exist in North america.  The variety is indeed in need of rescue.

Chickens today are bred to new food standards, industrial standards.  The “broiler industry” rules the roost.  An acceptable breed must now meet the following production specifications: fast-paced growth, a broad plump breast, efficient conversion of feed to meat.  The bird of choice is the white-feathered Cornish Cross.  The breed has great virtues:  ability to live in very close quarters, lack of desire to forage, fast-paced growth.  Its greatest virtues, however also create the breed’s biggest failures.  The Cornish Cross grows to market weight in seven or eight weeks. (Rhode Island Reds takes twelve weeks.) Along the way, however, the phenomenal growth rate produces physical breakdowns such as broken legs and heart failure.  Close quarters demand antibiotics to ward off disease.  

Unfortunately, the predominance of the Cornish Cross has effected the entire species.  Breeders concentrate their resources on producing only one breed of chicken, the industry standard.  Heritage breeds have fallen under a pall of disrespect and their numbers are in decline.