Though I can’t remember it myself – I’m 43, and have been for some years – I know that 1964 was pretty groovy, culturally speaking. Top of the Pops was broadcast by the BBC for the first time, the Beatles released A Hard Day’s Night, and at the cinema, audiences flocked to see Goldfinger; it was also the year Jackie was born, a magazine my mum would later ban. But for the purposes of this column, the most significant event by far was the opening of Terence Conran’s Habitat, where those with revolutionary instincts and a cool eye for design could newly avail themselves of flat pack furniture, duvets (AKA continental quilts) and Japanese-inspired paper lampshades.
Sixty years! To celebrate this birthday, Habitat is once again selling its famous chicken brick, in a shiny black earthenware that makes it look a bit like a piece of liquorice (the 1964 original, basically a tiny clay oven, was made of terracotta) – and how clever of it. Some people will buy one for nostalgic reasons; others may go for it on the back of the revival of slow cooking more generally (bricks take longer than roasting trays, plus you have to soak them in water for 15 minutes first, to avoid cracking). Either way, though, the chicken brick 2.0 will set you back only £20: an absolute steal compared, say, to those heavy coloured pans that were so popular two years ago, and about which everyone seems now always to be complaining.
For my part, I have a near-pathological fear of chicken skin that’s not crisp, and I can’t see how the bird could emerge from such a coffin without this being so, whatever aficionados might claim. But even if I’m not rushing to buy one, the history of this object fascinates me. How much chicken did people eat in 1964, and what did it taste like? Even in my childhood, it was something we had relatively rarely, and memory tells me that it tasted stronger – richer and gamier – than it does now. How did the chicken brick fit with this? Was it the 60s equivalent of an air fryer, pushed to the back of a cupboard because only rarely used? Or was it useful, a way of tenderising chicken that was – what’s the word? – meatier than it is now?
All this may sound esoteric. But my point, ultimately, is serious. Don’t you find yourself more and more disappointed when you eat roast chicken at home? I do. Even free-range, organic birds often taste at best, boring, and at worst, slightly odd – fishy, even. The problem is, I suppose, that even “good” intensive farming is still intensive, deploying breeds that are reliable for the purposes of scale, and little else; the same inoffensiveness has spoiled the taste of apples and pears, too, hundreds of varieties having been lost down the years. Additionally, small poultry breeders have long struggled in the face of, among other things, abattoirs that will operate only with large throughputs.
Chicken has become an inexpensive fallback, comforting or bland depending on your point of view – which may be why we try so hard to infuse it with other flavours. When I’m marinating chicken, I resemble a masseuse in an upmarket spa. Nothing’s too much trouble; applying my fingertips gently to its pearly breasts, I draw the line only at whale music.
Feeling vaguely miserable about all this, I thought I’d go back to basics: perhaps I could “relearn” the art of roasting a bird, and all would be well. But when I turned to Simon Hopkinson’s Roast Chicken and Other Stories, I found I was already following the master’s instructions (a hot oven, then a less hot one; plenty of thyme and lemon juice) to the letter. Sigh. Obviously, I need, somehow, to find a source of better, tastier birds. Then, turning a page disconsolately, I stumbled on a recipe I’d all but forgotten: the grandly named poulet sauté au vinaigre, in which the bird is jointed and cooked in a casserole (or a brick?) with stock, chopped fresh tomatoes and red wine vinegar. Suddenly, such sweet-sharpness was all I wanted, not to mention a reminder that, whatever else is going on with chicken right now, it is still more versatile even than a fashion editor’s capsule wardrobe.
