Page 22 - Barbecue Chicken Made Easy

almost always more expensive. Blind tastings show that proper cooking influences the taste of a bird far more than how the bird is grown (and some tasters actually prefer conventional chicken). Nutritionally, organic and conventional birds are the same. While there may be environmental benefits, there is no evidence that organic birds are healthier for humans.
Oven Prepared. A chicken that is fully cooked and ready to eat.
Pasture Raised. Has no legal definition. Implies the bird was not raised indoors but in a pasture, but this is rarely the case. True pastured poultry is often raised in rotating outdoor pens on a diet high in natural forage of seeds and bugs, which tends to make the meat slightly firmer and may make it more flavorful in some cases.
Poulet de Bresse. A blue legged, white feathered, red-comb breed grown in the province of Bresse near Burgundy in Eastern France. It is widely praised as the best chicken in the world. Most are slowly raised in flocks not exceeding 500 birds and killed at four months of age, twice the age of the typical American factory raised bird. At that point, Poulet de Bresse weight about 2 1⁄2 to 3 pounds, smaller than the typical 3 to 4 pounds of American breeds. They are truly free-range foragers most of the time they are growing, which gives them well-developed muscles and full-flavored meat. In their last two weeks they are finished on corn and powdered milk. Poulet de Bresse are labeled AOC (Appellation d’Origine Contrôlée), the French certificate of origin and authenticity for wines, cheeses, and other foods produced in a traditional manner according to strict, time-honored methods. They are hard to find, even in the best restaurants in Paris, and because only about 10% of the production is exported they are very expensive. But they are definitely worth trying if you can find one.
Red label (label rouge). While not as prestigious as Poulet de Bresse, this French label for free-range chickens requires a