{"id":482,"date":"2012-09-28T17:58:56","date_gmt":"2012-09-28T17:58:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/joeplumstead.com\/?p=482"},"modified":"2012-12-06T03:23:31","modified_gmt":"2012-12-06T03:23:31","slug":"simple-prosperity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/joeplumstead.com\/?p=482","title":{"rendered":"SIMPLE PROSPERITY"},"content":{"rendered":"

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The automobile has always been a symbol of progress, status and prosperity.\u00a0 That is usually the way it is with anything that is rare and expensive.\u00a0 It\u2019s difficult to believe, however, that chickens were once held in a similar lofty esteem\u2014at least as a food source.\u00a0 Equally astounding is that both cars and chickens were used in an unofficial campaign slogan to garner votes from the common folk for a Presidential candidate.<\/p>\n

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Herbert Hoover faced Al Smith in the 1928 Presidential race.\u00a0 Supporters of Hoover declared he would provide every American with \u201ca chicken in every pot and a car in every back yard\u201d.\u00a0 Hoover never publicly said this.\u00a0 He did say, “We in America today are nearer to the final triumph over poverty than ever before in the history of this land… We shall soon with the help of God be in sight of the day when poverty will be banished from this land.”\u00a0 These were inspiring words.\u00a0 Hoover was a beacon of hope and\u00a0foresight.\u00a0\u00a0He beat Smith by a landslide.<\/p>\n

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Unfortunately for Hoover\u2014and everyone else in\u00a0Am\"\"<\/a>erica\u2014the Stock Market took a nosedive six months after he was inaugurated, plunging the country into The Great Depression.\u00a0 Car ownership for the majority of Americans would be stalled until after the Second World War\u2014and chicken would be on the menu for only a select few.<\/p>\n

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The fact that chicken was a rare and expensive commodity eighty-four years ago\u2014and right up until the late 1950\u2019s\u2014is that chickens were raised primarily for their eggs.\u00a0 Eggs were a reliable food source as well as a source for barter and currency.\u00a0 One hen is capable of laying up to twenty dozen eggs a year, with that output lasting reliably for about two years.\u00a0 Thereafter, the chicken was headed off to the chopping block and sold at market\u2014usually at a ridiculously higher price per pound than pork, beef, lamb or even lobster\u2026and this, for a two-year-old bird, well past its prime in both tenderness and flavor.\u00a0 Invariably, these tough old birds had to spend hours in the stew pot before they were edible.<\/p>\n

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Younger chickens\u2014raised expressly for meat\u2014were even more expensive than the laying hens that were forced into an early retirement.\u00a0 Being younger, birds from two weeks old (Cornish hens) to eight weeks old (broilers & fryers) to less than eight months old (roasters) were tenderer.\u00a0 This further inflated the cost, restricting demand to a wealthy few.<\/p>\n

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By the 1950\u2019s middle class incomes had risen sharply as a result of the post-war-feel-good-about-everything boon, evolving a high demand for chicken.\u00a0 This demand coincided with improvements in methods of avian husbandry, as well as cost-effective innovations in processing, packaging and distributing chickens.\u00a0 Almost overnight, chicken became a weekly staple for most Americans.\u00a0 In subsequent decades it would continue to grow in\u00a0popularity, owing largely to the nationwide burgeoning of an ever-growing \u201cfoodie\u201d culture, as well as rightfully being regarded as a healthier, less fattening protein alternative to beef or pork.<\/p>\n

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With regard to chicken and cars, one could correctly observe that the wheels of progress have turned slowly–but they did<\/em> turn. \u00a0Prosperity sometimes begets poverty, but that is a\u00a0relative\u00a0observation. \u00a0A gallon of gas costs more than a chicken dinner. \u00a0Given a choice between the two, a plump chicken simmering all day in a pot renders a sweeter smell of success.<\/p>\n

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Thanks, Mr. Hoover, wherever you are.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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A NEVER-ENDING SOUP<\/span><\/h3>\n

My wife, Michelle, is the soup maker in our house.\u00a0 Yesterday, after taking photographs for my blog entry, she combined the following ingredients in a one and a half gallon pot:<\/p>\n