An update and a question

[sourland]

I have never been able to convince myself to use the feet. I know what those things have stepped in!

You can parboil the feet, cool and remove the skin/scales, and then add them to the stock. My mother was big on 'waste not, want not.;

 

[3KillerBs]

And it's obvious; those balls are much larger than his brain!

Bigger than his brain?

Bigger than his entire head!

You can parboil the feet, cool and remove the skin/scales, and then add them to the stock. My mother was big on 'waste not, want not.;

I don't parboil them, I just scald as if for plucking and peel their "socks" right off.

 

[bobbi-j]

You can parboil the feet, cool and remove the skin/scales, and then add them to the stock. My mother was big on 'waste not, want not.;

Yep, there are people who can do that. Not sure I’m one of them. I was raised in a suburb of the Twin Cities. To raise, then butcher animals that I have raised was quite a big step. (Although I had a step-dad who taught me to hunt, fish and process ducks and pheasants, so that part wasn’t completely new to me.) The chickens we first raised were CX, because that’s what MIL had when DH was growing up. At the time, all we knew was to feed them free choice. They were icky, dirty, smelly birds who never left the coop, even when they could. In my mind, those feet could be boiled and skinned clear to bone and still would not be clean enough for me to want to eat them.

 

[sourland]

@bobbi-j I don't think that even Mom could have used the feet of Cornish X. Fairly certain that she would have considered them an abomination.

 

[Morrigan]

And we also don't eat those 'Rocky Mountain oysters'!

You could eat them if you wanted to but I usually feed them to the dogs.

Ditto. My dogs scarf them up.

 

[luckycluk]

I don't eat any of the giblets, but I always put the liver, the heart, the gizzard, and the testicles into my soup stock along with the feet, the neck, and the backs,

Before we had chickens we never ate any of the other parts, like livers and hearts and while we could now, the family isn't very keen; and to tell the truth I'm not sure I am either!
I guess it comes down to what one's grown up with.

My kids and I love breaded n fried gizzards

 

[3KillerBs]

My kids and I love breaded n fried gizzards

I've never gotten the taste for eating the giblets.

But when I make stock from a bird that didn't come with the giblets it just doesn't taste right.

 

[Sussex19]

My kids and I love breaded n fried gizzards

what to they actually taste like?