While a home-roasted chicken represents an idealized American dinner, the rise of the ubiquitous takeout rotisserie chicken is an extreme microcosm of the commodification and exploitation of that vision.
Representatives at Costco declined to comment for this article. At many other supermarkets selling cut-rate rotisserie birds, the same strategy has been in place for decades. Now, he goes with his kids.
In , the United States is expected to eat an estimated 1 billion rotisserie chickens, according to the National Chicken Council. But the economy of roasting many birds at once on mechanically rotating spits—and the sensory appeal of that process—is not to be underestimated.
In Paris, where she has lived part-time for years, McKenna finds rotisserie chicken at just about every food market, as well as people lining up for their beautifully roast bird. In France, these small potatoes and sometimes onions that are cooked in the rotisserie chicken drippings are typically given to the customer along with a whole chicken. According to Hillary Davis, author of French Comfort Food , who lived in France for more than a decade, dripping, golden birds in a rotisserie oven—with the pan of potatoes below—are common sights in the food stores of Lyon, Dijon, and Paris.
The concept of slowly rotating more than one chicken on a spit over a heat source is new to neither American grocery stores nor the streets of Paris. It is depicted in medieval European art dating back to the 14th century. It was prized by Napoleon.
Cut it into several pieces and refrigerate it in a covered container for up to four days or freeze it. Frozen leftovers are safe indefinitely but best eaten within four months, after which moisture and flavor is compromised.
You can also make any of the following meals using the whole bird. Shred up the meat for:. A multidimensional background in lifestyle journalism, recipe development, and anthropology impels me to bring a human element to the coverage of home kitchen appliances. When I'm not researching dishwashers and blenders or poring over market reports, I'm likely immersed in a juicy crossword puzzle or trying and failing to love exercise.
Find me on Facebook. We respect your privacy. All email addresses you provide will be used just for sending this story. By Perry Santanachote. Published March 9, Updated August 28, Photo: Getty Images.
It was, however, messy to take apart since the bones are thicker and harder to break through than smaller chickens. The skin was crisp and beautifully seasoned with a bunch of potato-based ingredients, thickeners, and sugars , but no preservatives or gluten. The white meat felt substantial to the bite, with thicker, denser flesh that was juicy even though it wasn't necessarily tender. Like the Kroger chicken, the meat had a tendency to string off, creating that same sticky, tacky feeling to the teeth as I ate.
The dark meat was a little tougher texturally. I sure didn't, but that was only the first of the many pleasant surprises from my Walmart Supercenter's deli. This 1-pound, ounce chicken comes with a "Freshness Guarantee" and having scored mine just an hour out of the rotisserie, it definitely delivered. I could tell from the minute I inserted my carving knife that it was moist and juicy, and it cut cleanly. The seasoning blend had a much more pronounced herbaceousness than the others, thanks to the use of dried chicken broth, rosemary, parsley, lemon peel, and citric acid.
The nicely browned skin opened up to surprisingly bright white meat—noticeably paler than its competition. In turn, the flavor opened up as I ate it, too, with a long sweet finish to extremely tender white meat. The seasoning that's so good on the skin translates differently in the flesh, though. It only permeated halfway through the chicken which is considerably deeper than all but my top pick , but became kind of artificial tasting towards the middle.
This caused the dark meat to have a distinctly gamey, almost Thanksgiving turkey flavor to it, with a funky undertone. A classic case of not judging a book by its cover, this deceptively plain-looking chicken from Publix —thrown in a windowed paper bag—wowed from the first bite.
Its weight was unspecified and its seasonings—mainly chicken broth , onion powder, spice extractives, sugar, and a bunch of thickening gums to add to the skin's texture—sounded nondescript. But breaking it open yielded an exceptionally meaty chicken for its smaller size with a juiciness I could feel through the knife. Its golden skin, which stayed relatively crisp, had a balanced flavor, and the meat beneath it was wholesome, rich, and balanced.
But if you think the store is making a fortune off these things, you'd be wrong. If you've ever tasted a Costco chicken before, you know they can be incredibly salty and, in turn, incredibly tasty. That's because they're injected with a special saline solution to add flavor. The birds pack in a total milligrams of sodium each. These are the Costco shopping perks you need to know about. But they don't pack in that many unexpected ingredients.
The chickens are typically seasoned in factories before being shipped to Costco, which is what earns them their "processed food" title. Even Dr. Oz reassured viewers that the birds are some of the healthiest processed foods out there—and removing the skins makes them even healthier.
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