Sunday and chicken dinner went together. I always loved it. I never got tired of it. There was the sound of it frying in the black iron skillet, and the wonderful aroma of it, and the beautiful brown crispyness of it laying on the platter, and the undescribably delicious taste of it.
Nearly every family had chickens for meat and eggs running around the yard. I enjoyed feeding the cracked corn and table scraps to the chickens. I liked gathering the eggs and watching the new born chicks. I was always pained by the quick dispatch of the chickens head on the chopping block. A job I never had to perform thank goodness.
My father would cut up the chicken and refrigerate the pieces in salted icewater. When the time came, he dried the chicken, dredged them in flour which had salt and pepper, garlic powder, celery powder, mixed in. He used a heavy old iron skillet, passed down from his mother, preheated with about 1/2 melted bacon grease, and fried them nice and brown all over. This took maybe 15-20 minutes, and then they went into a hot oven 350-375 degrees for about one hour. He liked to put a lid on for the first twenty minutes, and then bake the remaining time uncovered, turning the chicken over about half way through the baking time. He liked roasted potatoes circleing the out side edges of the pan, and they would brown and crisp right along with the chicken.
When the chicken was done, and removed from the pan to a platter, excessive grease was removed from the pan, and flour was stirred into the remaining grease, and milk and salt and pepper added to make the chicken gravy.
On some occasions when company came to call and happened to stay until almost dinner, and were invited to eat with the family, I was secretly whispered to, to not take a piece until the guests had taken one. I never went hungrey and it didn't happen that often, but it was a painful sight to watch the last piece of chicken disappear on another childs plate, one whom you weren't all that fond of anyway, enjoying what you had savored enjoying all the cooking afternoon.
The breast piece contained the golden magic wishing bone. This piece when dried was held by two people and pulled apart, the person getting the top of the so called wish bone, getting their wish as silently uttered before the pull.
Chicken was the meal of choice. It was for family, and church dinners, funeral food delivered with sympathy and respect, a picnic food with potato salad, pickles and bread and butter to be eaten at the park while we listened to a band concert, and excellent as a left over if you were lucky enough to have any leftover.
Other families brought their chicken but I always liked ours best.
The second favorite way of preparing chicken was chicken and noodles. A stewing hen was put into a deep pan, covered with water and 1/2 teaspoon of salt per pound of chicken. A bay leaf was added, and it was brought to a boil and simmered for about 3 hours. The meat was very tender and would easily come off the bone. The bones were discarded and the meat was returned to the broth.
The homemade noodles were a cup of flour and 3 egg yolks, mixed together to form a dough. The dough was rolled out into a circle rather like pie dough, and left to dry. Before it became brittle, it was rolled and sliced into narrow noodle strips and these were then sprinkled apart to continue drying. They were added to the broth at the end of process and allowed to cook another 15 minutes until tender.
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