A word for my vegetarian readers: Uh, sorry.
My househelper does not like chickens from the supermarket. She screws up her entire face, smelling them, poking at them. Once she made me throw one away, claiming it smelled bad. I didn’t actually think it smelled all that bad, but since in my experience North Africans will consider as food more things than I will, I went with her judgement.
The chickens seem harmless to me, although I admit they do sometimes look a bit old. They are raised in Brazil, killed in a “hallal” way (i.e. permitted for Muslims), and shipped for sale in Morocco. They are inexpensive.
Khadija tells me that I need to go to Takkadoum to buy a live chicken. They will kill it for me, she tells me, and then I need to let it sit a day. It will be so much better than these dead, wilted-looking Brazilian chickens, and the cost is the same.
Ok.
So this week, we went to Takkadoum to buy a chicken. We knew where to go–right next to the place we buy our lamb, although that’s already slaughtered and in pieces by the time we get there.
We view the impressive rainbow of chickens on the ground. We have no idea how to pick a chicken. So we ask—which is better? Male or female? Are certain colours of feathers hiding a plumper, tastier interior? Lower in fat; higher in nutrition? Less sugar? The men shrug. It’s a matter of personal taste, they tell us. This is unusually unhelpful.
Since we have no idea, we pick one at random. I like black and white, Donn likes black and white, why not a black and white chicken? The guy offers us two chickens, tied together by their legs and dangling resignedly from his hand, but we’re pretty sure we just want one, even though we’re having guests.
We point to our chicken, and it’s taken just across the way to be weighed and slaughtered. I’ve never seen a chicken killed before so I’m looking forward to seeing it flopping round with its head cut off, like the stories my dad used to tell of his childhood on a Kansas farm. Instead, the chicken’s throat is cut and it’s plopped down into a bucket, where the wings flap a bit but it’s undramatic.
Once the chicken has had time to drain, it’s taken up to The Machine. We can’t really see The Machine, as I call it, only a rubber belt thumping away on the side. But in an amazingly short time, the plucked raw chicken is held up for our inspection. The man offers us the head, but we decline, although I’m tempted to take it just for you, dear readers. But then what would I do with it? Yeah.
The chicken has shrunk dramatically. It’s only about half the size, and it wasn’t all that big to start with! Its entrails are removed and it’s washed in a little white sink and then placed in a bag and handed to us.
Of course Khadija does not come, so my plan of showing you a beautiful picture of a chicken couscous has been foiled. I put it in the freezer for later. In the meantime, you can enjoy seeing what she does with Brazilian chickens.
Planet Nomad 
14 comments
October 31, 2009 at 9:43 pm
bigworldcentral
Very nice blog! Keep up the good blogging!
I hope you can come visit my blog sometime.
http://bigworldcentral.wordpress.com/
November 1, 2009 at 7:03 am
meredith
I bet that chicken was better, too.
November 1, 2009 at 7:23 am
Linda
I had a chicken once, raised in the wild, killed in front of us, watched it flap around. It was the toughest thing I ever ate. We learned to boil them first, then fry the meat. I guess the chickens there aren’t allowed to roam. When we visited Marakech I saw a bunch of chickens in a large cage, just like your photos.
November 1, 2009 at 7:47 am
snacks from thecruise buffet
The hardest part for me about the process is putting the chicken into the refrigerator. I’m still used to cold supermarket chickens and it’s always a little unsettling to touch the still warm one.
November 1, 2009 at 4:02 pm
LIB
Fascinating post! I loved it when you illustrate your posts.
You didn’t mention–could you taste a difference?
November 1, 2009 at 4:27 pm
MaryWitzl
All of us who eat chicken should have the chance to see something like this. My mother, who became a vegetarian in her fifties, grew up on a farm where they had to slaughter their own chickens. At some point, she found she could no longer bear to twist chickens’ necks. I suspect if I had to kill my own chickens, I would be a much better vegetarian myself.
November 1, 2009 at 7:23 pm
Kathi D
I wish I had the stomach to raise my own chickens to eat. As much as I love the fresh eggs, it would also be nice to know that the chickens I was eating were raised in a healthy way and slaughtered and processed cleanly. But I just don’t have enough farm girl in me to do it. Dang it!
November 2, 2009 at 9:15 pm
gretchen from lifenut
We looked into getting chickens, but our suburb isn’t zoned to allow them. Ironically, you can have chickens in downtown Denver.
So did the black and white chicken taste better than the Brazilian chickens?
November 3, 2009 at 3:17 pm
Nan
Our chickens in Trinidad had to be cooked looong and slow, they were so tough from running after bugs. But they tasted so much better than the “shop chickens”. And the pluck ‘n’ gut man has the same rubber de-featherer. Huh.
November 4, 2009 at 12:11 am
expat21
Yes, these chickens are called “Bildi” (or natural “country” chickens.). Yes, perhaps you noticed that the meat IS different. It’s much darker even in the white meat than a domestically-raised chicken.
Generally speaking, Bildi chickens are definitely NOT good baked in the oven–they get hard and dried out. If you are making any kind of a stewed dish they are delicious and superior.
The other difference you MAY notice is that if you “stew” a domestic chicken in Morocco, you can sometimes taste the fish-based chicken feed in the meat. This fishy flavor is not noticeable, however, in baked chickens.
This is a great series of photos here. So many people in the chicken markets don’t want you to take pictures.
Hope this helps!
Expat 21 (in Marrakesh 17 years) of Expat Abroad
expat21.wordpress.com
November 5, 2009 at 12:03 am
Grateful for Grace
The lanterns’ effects are gorgeous!! I love it. Teeming is good. Very good.
November 27, 2009 at 6:33 pm
Fresh Meat « Planet Nomad
[…] come a long way quickly from that first experience of choosing our pretty pretty chicken. Turns out we, in our ignorance, bought a stewing chicken. We […]
March 19, 2010 at 2:24 pm
Axel Bushing
One should experience the death of their potential food at least once in their lifetime. I found it clarified the sacredness of eating. For us to live, something must die. Even vegetarians impact the lives of vertebrates by usurping their grazing opportunities to raise plant ctops for our food. That is probably where the custom arose of giving thanks at the beginning of a meal.
One should live as gently on the earth as possible, but our lives are never without some consequence, for good or evil.
May 8, 2010 at 11:20 am
Adventures in Feminine Pampering « Planet Nomad
[…] I picked a place. It’s in a market area not that far from where I buy my chickens; a place of crowded stacked apartment buildings and narrow alleyways, a place where you can buy […]