Why has the chicken become the meat par excellence, the most plentifully
eaten and popular animal protein in the world, consumed from Beijing to
Barcelona? As renowned historian Paul Josephson shows, the story of the
chicken's rise involves a whole host of factors; from art, to
nineteenth-century migration patterns to cold-war geopolitics. And
whereas sheep needed too much space, or the cow was difficult to
transport, these compact, lightweight birds produced relatively little
waste, were easy to transport and could happily peck away in any urban
back garden.
Josephson tells this story from all sides: the transformation of the
chicken from backyard scratcher to hyper-efficient industrial
meat-product has been achieved due to the skill of entrepreneurs who
first recognized the possibilities of chicken meat and the gene
scientists who bred the plumpest and most fertile birds. But it has also
been forced through by ruthless capitalists and lobbyists for "big
farmer", at the expense of animal welfare and the environment. With no
sign of our lust for chicken abating, we're now reaching a crisis point:
billions of birds are slaughtered every year, after having lived lives
that are nasty, brutish and short. The waste from these victims is
polluting rivers and poisoning animals. We're now plunging "egg-first"
into environmental disaster.
Alongside this story Josephson tells another, of an animal with
endearing characteristics who, arguably, can lay claim to being man's
best friend long before the dog reared its snout or the cat came in from
the cold. Lionized in medieval romances and modern cartoons, the
chicken's relationship to humanity runs deep; by treating these animals
as mere food products, we become less than human.
