Nourishing Traditions: The Cookbook That Challenges Politically Correct Nutrition and The... (79 page)

As Americans have cut back on red meat, chicken has played an increasingly important role in the nation's diet. Although chicken is a perfectly good source of animal protein, frequent chicken consumption requires a cautionary note. First of all, we must be careful of the source of chickens we buy. Battery-raised chickens are subjected to crowded living conditions and often substandard feed; they require frequent doses of antibiotics and growth hormones to reach adulthood. Many develop cancers and these cancerous chickens are not necessarily discarded. According to researcher Virginia Livingston Wheeler, these cancers can be transmitted to humans. We advise you to find a source of organic, cage-free or pasture-fed chicken, which is becoming more available directly from farmers and in our markets and is worth the additional price.

Secondly, we warn you against eating chicken—even pasture-fed chicken—to excess. Any food eaten to the exclusion of others can lead to allergies, food addictions and adverse reactions. This is true of meats as well as vegetables, dairy products and grains. It is best to eat a variety of fowl—chicken, turkey, Cornish game hens and domesticated duck—and to vary your source of animal protein between poultry, fish, game and red meat.

The collection presented here includes recipes for baked, roasted, grilled and stewed chicken. Chicken meat left over from making stock can be used in the recipes found on
Chicken with Walnuts
,
Chicken Supreme
and
Chicken Gumbo
.

Most of our recipes call for the use of chicken stock in the sauce. Chicken stock provides a concentrated source of minerals and hydrophilic colloids that make your entire meal more digestible.

Don't neglect to eat the skin and the dark meat as well as the white. The skin provides valuable fat-soluble vitamins and antimicrobial fatty acids, while the dark meat contains more minerals than the white. And speaking of dark meat, do take advantage of domestic farm-raised duck now becoming more available in our markets. We suggest cutting ducks into pieces before preparing them, rather than cooking them whole. One duck will yield four generous servings; the carcass makes a rich stock for sauces and soups; the excess skin, when rendered of its fat, makes delicious cracklings for salads and is an excellent substitute for bacon; and the fat itself can be used in many ways. Duck fat is highly prized in France for cooking potatoes; and in Scandinavia where it is spread like butter on dark bread to make delicious sandwiches. It is high in stable oleic acid and rich in fat-soluble vitamins.

ROAST CHICKEN

Serves 6

1 roasting chicken, about 4 pounds

1 medium onion, peeled and thinly sliced

2 whole heads of garlic (optional)

3 tablespoons melted butter

sea salt and pepper

several sprigs fresh thyme, oregano or tarragon

½ cup dry white wine or vermouth

4 cups
chicken stock

1 tablespoon gelatin (See
Sources
), optional

Strew onion slices in a stainless steel roasting pan. Cut optional heads of garlic in half and place, cut side down, in pan. Stuff fresh herbs into the cavity of the chicken and place on a rack in the roasting pan, underside up. Brush with melted butter and sprinkle with sea salt and pepper. Bake at 375 degrees for 1 hour. To turn chicken, insert a wooden spoon into the cavity. Lift chicken and rotate so that top side is up. Brush with more butter, season with salt and pepper and return to oven. Bake another hour. Remove chicken to a carving board and cut into individual pieces. Reserve chicken pieces and garlic in a warm oven while making sauce. (Serve garlic heads to garlic lovers. Softened, individual cloves can be picked out with a fork. They are delicious.)

Remove rack from baking pan. You may pour off the fat if you wish, but it is not necessary. Pour in wine and bring to a boil, stirring to loosen onion slices. Add stock and optional gelatin and reduce to about half by vigorous boiling. Strain sauce into a small saucepan and keep warm over a low flame.

A series of feeding experiments on rats showed differences in the nutritive value of common fats. The rats which received butterfat grew better than the rats fed vegetable oils, were better in appearance, and had better reproductive capacity. Apparently butterfat contains a substance not present in the other fats tested, which is essential for growth and health of young animals. This difference is not due to vitamins A, D or E but to a difference in the chemical constitution of the fats. These findings are significant to the knowledge of nutrition because they indicate additional reasons why milk fat has superior value for human diets. Weston Price, DDS
Nutrition and Physical Degeneration

BASIC BAKED CHICKEN

Serves 6

1 frying chicken, cut into pieces

2 tablespoons Dijon-type mustard

2 tablespoons melted butter

1 tablespoon dried tarragon

½ cup dry white wine

2 cups
chicken stock

1 tablespoon gelatin (See
Sources
), optional

sea salt and pepper

Place chicken pieces skin side up in a stainless steel roasting pan. Mix mustard, butter and tarragon and brush on chicken. Bake for about 2 hours at 350 degrees or until pieces are golden. Remove to a heated platter and keep warm in the oven while making sauce. Add wine, stock and optional gelatin to the baking pan and boil vigorously, stirring to loosen any accumulated drippings, until sauce reduces and thickens. Season to taste and serve.

Variation: Chicken with Cream Sauce

Strew
several sprigs fresh tarragon
over chicken in the pan. (Omit dried tarragon.) Add
1 cup
piima cream
or
creme fraiche
to the stock and wine when you are reducing the sauce. Strain sauce into a small pan and add
2 tablespoons fresh tarragon leaves, chopped
.

Variation: Chicken with Red Pepper Sauce

Place
3 red peppers, cored, seeded and coarsely chopped in pan with chicken pieces.
After chicken has cooked, saute peppers in the fat in the roasting pan. Add wine and stock and reduce. Pass the sauce through a food mill (see
A Word on Equipment
) and into a saucepan. Reheat gently and season to taste.

Variation: Chicken with Peanut Sauce

Prepare chicken according to master recipe, omitting mustard. When sauce has reduced, remove from heat and gradually add
1½ cups peanut sauce (
peanut sauce
)
, using a wire whisk. Transfer sauce to a container set in hot water. Do not let the sauce boil or it will burn.

Actually, the digestive mechanism of man is adapted to a mixed meat and vegetable diet. Human teeth consist of three types: canines or piercing teeth of the meat-eating animals, the incisors of plant-eating animals, and the molars or grinders of grain-and-nut-eating animals. With respect to structure, human teeth are conclusive proof that the human body is adapted to a mixed animal and plant diet. Man has specific digestive ferments for meat proteins and other special digestive juices for carbohydrates. His stomach and intestinal tract is equipped to handle both. Man is naturally adapted to a mixed diet of animal and plant foods. H. Leon Abrams
Your Body Is Your Best Doctor

MOROCCAN STYLE CHICKEN

Serves 6

1 frying chicken cut into pieces

¼ cup naturally fermented soy sauce

¼ cup dry white wine

2 tablespoons honey

juice of 2 lemons

grated rind of 2 lemons or 3 tablespoons
preserved lemon peel

1 clove garlic, peeled and mashed

1 teaspoon curry powder

¼ teaspoon ground ginger

½ teaspoon each dried oregano, thyme and crushed green peppercorns

3 tablespoons melted butter

2 cups
chicken stock

8 dried apricot halves, coarsely chopped and soaked in warm filtered water

Mix soy sauce, wine, honey, lemon juice, lemon rind and all spices together. Marinate chicken pieces in this mixture in the refrigerator for several hours or overnight. Remove pieces, pat dry and set skin side up in a stainless steel baking pan, reserving marinade. Brush with butter, season with sea salt and pepper and bake at 375 degrees for about 2 hours. Reduce heat if chicken begins to burn. Remove chicken to heated platter while making sauce.

Pour chicken stock into the pan, bring to a boil and stir well. Add marinade and drained apricot pieces. Let sauce reduce by about one-half. Check seasoning and pour over chicken pieces.

It was the Miss America Pageant and, after viewing it, I actually fell to prayer for the return of the American Beauty. This Pageant became for me a tragic testimonial to the physical degeneration that has occurred in the modern civilized world, especially during the last 40 years of advanced technology.

Deaf Smith County, Texas has sponsored an inordinate number of attractive pageant winners. It is not coincidence but the result of the water supply, which is higher in zinc, iodine and magnesium, all of which contribute to the much denser and better proportioned bone structure of the men and women living there. It has become famous as an area without a toothache. What do teeth have to do with beauty? Decayed teeth, like crowded ones and under developed bones, also detract from our attractiveness.

Because of impoverished soils, poor water supplies, overprocessed foods and inadequate diets, that begin unwittingly as "high-tech" baby formulas instead of human breast milk, we are seeing a rapid decline in beauty, intelligence and grace. The evidence is found in these pageants, lower SAT scores and in the growing consensus of distrust, inhumanity and immorality between men. Beauty is more than skin deep. The so-called "civilized" world is turning mean and ugly to the very bone. R. M. Dell'Orfano
PPNF Health Journal