How Did the Chicken Cross the World?
The Food Programme
BBC
4.4 • 976 Ratings
🗓️ 12 October 2015
⏱️ 28 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
As a race, we humans owe a fair amount to the chicken. Throughout time it has been a religious deity, a medicine source as well as being a food. It's travelled the world alongside explorers, inspired scientific revelations and of course been the nub of the world's most famous joke.
Today, chicken is the second biggest supply of meat protein in the world, and it's on the rise. More than four times as much chicken is now consumed in the USA than in the 1950s, and as new markets emerge in the Middle East and Asia, our hunger for chicken is only set to grow. To meet demand, the bird has become a valuable commodity, farmed and processed in a factory setting.
In this programme Dan Saladino tracks the chicken from its roots in the Asian jungle, to its place on our dinner plates today with help from Andrew Lawler, author of 'Why Did The Chicken Cross The World'. He discovers how a competition in the 1950s had a radical impact on the type of chicken we eat and hears how genetics, cooking and art might have a role to play in preserving some almost forgotten breeds and tastes.
Dan asks geneticist Professor Bill Muir where will we take the chicken next?
Presented by Dan Saladino Produced by Clare Salisbury
NB. Correction. The Buckeye chicken was developed in the 1890s, not the 1820s as stated in the programme.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello I'm Sheila Dylan and welcome to this BBC download of the Food Program. |
| 0:06.0 | For information on the BBC's terms and conditions of use, visit |
| 0:09.6 | www. |
| 0:10.9 | BBC.co. UK slash radio four and now enjoy the podcast |
| 0:20.9 | This week the past present and future of the chicken, one of the truly global food stories |
| 0:28.0 | which is why we're going to start in Cuba and one man's search for a special bird. |
| 0:34.0 | I couldn't find it. |
| 0:35.0 | I couldn't find it because it was completely extinct. |
| 0:38.0 | Meet Kuhn Van Meckler, a man who's dedicated most of his life and career to the chicken. |
| 0:46.0 | He travels the world looking for the most beautiful and precious breeds, and Cuba had its very |
| 0:51.1 | own, the Cuba liar, kept its eggs and meat, but it's a bird that disappeared. |
| 0:56.5 | After the revolution, we know the story of Cuba. |
| 1:00.5 | Everything becomes difficult economically and still it's difficult. |
| 1:05.0 | I guess that they eat all the chickens, also included the Kubalaya. |
| 1:09.4 | Convinced Cuba needed its chicken back, |
| 1:12.2 | Kuhin searched the world for the Cuba liar, |
| 1:15.0 | and in 2007, made a chance discovery. |
| 1:18.0 | By coincident, I was making a tour to the state |
| 1:22.0 | and in a garden of one of my collectors. |
| 1:26.0 | I found the Kubalaia in America. |
| 1:28.0 | This work and Kuhin's fascination with the chicken was inspired by an experience he had growing up in a village in |
| 1:35.3 | Belgium. There are moments in life that you will never forget and the age of five |
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