Ape 
28 BULLETIN 467, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 
SUMMARY. 
Chicken is by far the most common kind of poultry in the United — 
States, but capon, turkey, duck, goose, and squab are also often 
used for food, while guinea fowl, pheasant, pigeon, quail, and par- 
tridge are fairly well known. In all of them table quality depends ~ 
primarily on tenderness and flavor, and these, in turn, are influenced 
by age, sex, exercise, food, and care. Freshness is also an important 
factor, but this is not merely a question of how long a bird has been 
dead, but rather of how far developed are the chemical and bacte- 
riological changes which, when they are carried too far, cause what 
we call spoiling or decomposition in the meat. The microorganisms 
which cause dangerous changes are likely to be introduced by care- 
less and dirty handling, and for this reason cleanliness should be 
insisted on. The changes take place most rapidly in the presence of 
warmth and moisture. Hence cleanliness, cold, and dryness are at 
the bottom of all the methods of caring for poultry on the farm, in the © i 
warehouse, at the market, and in the home. 
The methods of cooking poultry are, in general, the same as those 
for other kinds of meat. The tougher the bird, the more cooking 
will be needed to make it tender and easily digested, and the larger 3 
it is, the more heat wil be required to cook it thoroughly. Canned 
and potted poultry are prepared in much the same way as freshly 
cooked dishes, then sterilized and sealed, and when properly put up 
do not differ essentially in food value from similar fresh foods. 
As regards composition, poultry does not differ as much as is com- 
monly supposed from other meats. Individual kinds and specimens, 
of course, vary in the relative amounts of inedible material or of pro- 
tein and fat contained, and there are certain flavors present in poul- 
try which differ from those in other meats; but these differences are 
not important in ordinary diet. The difference in digestibilty ~ 
between poultry and other meats or between various kinds of poul- — 
try is very slight. The latter probably depends largely on the amount 
of fat contained, the fatter sorts being, perhaps, less easily digested, 
but the distinctions are unimportant for healthy persons. 
The relative cost of different kinds of poultry depends primarily i 
on the price, but also on the- proportion of edible to inedible material 
and the thoroughness with which the edible portions can be utilized. 
Well-grown birds with good-sized masses of moderately fat flesh are 
more economical than either young or over-fattened ones.. At ordi- 
nary retail prices, full-grown chicken is the only poultry which com- | 
pares in real economy with the cheaper cuts of beef and pork, but — 
young chicken, medium-sized turkey, goose, and guinea fowl are 
often as economical as the more expensive grades of other meats. — 
When the birds can be obtained for little more than the cost of care 
and feeding, as sometimes happens on farms, they are, of course, 
a 22 
