...And REALLY old roosters? :D

[GrannyHeeney]

I have been surfing the "cooking old chickens" stuff here and on the interwebz but most of what I've seen has been in reference to 3, 4 yr old birds. I'd always heard that they taste nasty after a certain age--"You can't eat that!" By the length of mean old Leroy's spurs, my neighbors guessed him to be at least 7 yrs, but they also told me he was way too old to eat. Now I've read all this stuff...should I have cooked Leroy up?? Did I bury a perfectly good meal in the back 40? Argh!

 

[ChickenCanoe]

Depending on how you would have prepared it, you may have buried a perfectly good meal.

 

[Ridgerunner]

The French make a gourmet meal out of an old rooster, you might look up Coq au Vin. Chicken and Dumplings is a southern comfort food that can be made using an old rooster. The older the rooster the better the broth.

For these and others to work you have to know how to cook them. If you don't they can be inedible. Did you bury a good meal? Since you obviously don't know how to cook one, no, you did not. Would I bury a 7 year old rooster? No, absolutely not. What is done is done.

 

[Gray Farms]

Yep you did. The oldest roosters make the best noodles. Slow cook em all day, remove bones, and add noodles.

 

[ChickenCanoe]

Birds that have matured have acquired flavor, unlike the relatively tasteless 6 week old Cornish cross.

 

[GrannyHeeney]

Birds that have matured have acquired flavor, unlike the relatively tasteless 6 week old Cornish cross.

Ooooh, good point...