Feather to plate

Last weekend, researching an article about Charlottesville, Virginia, I got to visit Polyface Farm. Like so many other true believers in the locavore movement –those who believe that eating food that is grown and raised locally is better for the environment, better for the local economy, and better for your body (including taste buds!) -- I had read about Polyface in one of the seminal tomes of the concept, Michael Polan’s “Omnivore’s Dilemma.” The book describes the sustainable methods of pig, cattle and chicken farming practiced at Polyface, which is about 50 miles from Charlottesville, detailing how farmer Joel Salatin rotates his animals on pasture land, re-uses manure to nurture the soil, and follows the animals’ natural habits in order to keep them healthy, to maintain some semblance of natural balance, and for eventual harvest. This, the premise goes, makes for a better planet as well as a better drumstick (or pork chop) on your plate.

The book also portrays Salatin as a sort of radical folk hero, a forget-about-the-rules-and-do-what-you-know-is-right kind of guy.

So going to Polyface was a bit like a pilgrimage.

To get there, I followed windy, country roads past other farms (I wonder what Salatin’s neighbors think of all the hoopla) and on to a picturesque site dotted with plastic hoop-house greenhouses, barns and sheds, plus a market building where Polyface sells its wares (besides the meat, also produce and eggs). There was one other car in the small parking area. This is a working farm, not a showcase. And, when I went in to see if there might be a map in the market building (there was) the woman behind the counter told me they were slaughtering out back if I wanted to watch.

Um, yes. If you can get a first-hand look at where your food comes from, I think you should. Even when it involves slaughter.

Out back, a sort of mechanical humming was the only sound – it was the spinner that de-feathers the birds, sort of like a clothes-washing machine set on “spin,” but without the water. Just birds.

Besides the water spraying from the spinner (and the water on the floor and everywhere else in this open-air shed, keeping thing clean throughout the process), slaughtering at Polyface is a surprisingly neat operation, everything moving efficiently down an assembly line of family members, starting with 6-year-old Andrew, who minds the crates of fluffy white, live birds and then stacks the crates once they’re empty.

His dad, Daniel, grabs the birds one by one, and tucks them head first into metal cones arranged in a circle on a contraption hanging from the ceiling.

Then he slits their throats, an action so quick you hardly know it’s happened. There is no squawking, no protest, the chickens simply wait their turn in their crates (from which they could fly, if they had a notion, but they don’t), then succumb.

It doesn’t feel like death, in a bad way. It feels like dressing them, somehow – adding some necessary accoutrement, a necklace of thick blood, and they never blink, they just take it in stride and then they are no longer the kind of bird you interact with, maybe talk to, or shoo away from the lettuce, they are the kind of bird you find in your frig, the kind of bird you will eat.

Yes, there are slicks of dark blood under the cones with chickens hanging upside down. There are spatters of blood on Daniel’s cheeks, and on the yellow slicker aprons and overalls some of the other processors wear. But it is all part and parcel of the process. Part of the circle of life – as corny as that sounds, it is actually what I am witnessing. We nurture the animal. The animal nurtures us. Life goes on. And then there’s death. We get a much longer stay on earth, it is true – these birds got a total of eight weeks. They are small, Daniel explained, because they are spring chickens, not yet enjoying the more bountiful feast of insects and grasses available to later flocks.

The birds go from the slaughtering machine into a bin that flips them into boiling water, to loosen their feathers. Then, into the washing machine contraption, which spits out bits of water, as if the birds are being wrung out. Everything smells faintly of boiled chicken, and I wonder if my jeans, which I’m sure have been spattered by this spinning machine (I’m that close!), will stink by the end of the day. They don’t.

From there, the chicken gets passed down the line, with unwanted bits cut away or gathered into buckets – feet, gizzards, livers, hearts, I’m not sure what all the farmers are doing but by the end these birds are ready for the oven.

I take all this in from inches away, being careful to stay out of the way. Daniel answers my questions, and talks about the buying clubs that make up 45 percent of the business. He listens as his son carefully spells out his name for me, A-N-D-R-E-W. The boy tells me that’s his brother over there, helping cut up the chickens – Travis. He’s eight.

Then his dad helps spell out the last name,: S-A-L-A-T-I-N and I realize this is family. Daniel tells me Joel, Andrew’s grandfather, is standing in the assembly line, along with Andrew’s grandmother and great-grandmother. There are four generations here today, the first day of chicken harvesting. They are all friendly, listening politely and grinning slightly as I blather about how really pleased I am to meet them, I’ve never seen anything like this, it’s a wonderful place, etc.

My pilgrimage is complete.

And later, when I order a curried chicken salad at Revolutionary Soup in Charlottesville, I appreciate chicken in a whole new way.
Though I must say, the eggs I brought home from Polyface and ate hard-boiled today for lunch were even better. Brilliant orange yolks, rich but not heavy flavor. And, no slaughter required.