Page 4 - National Poultry Newspaper

Here’s cheers to good old roosters, just like this one.
Braham Metry is a big fan of roosters. He jokingly, but seriously, says they taste like chicken!
Roosters rule the roost when it comes to flavour
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THIS ABC Rural yarn last month by Annie Brown caught my eye, having looked at it from a couple of angles.
don't want the new meat chickens.
grow chickens and treat them like people, that the thought of eating a roost- er horrifies them.
First, it was yet another example in the long list of clever COVID-19 positive pivoting.
“They like what they used to have when they grew up.
“I’m sorry to say if the supermarkets closed to- morrow, most people would starve to death.”
Second, I so fondly re- call the awesome flavour of backyards roosters when I was a young fel- low.
Mr Metry said the dif- ference between the chickens sold in a ma- jor supermarket and the poultry he produces on his commercial free range farm comes down to pro- duction and taste.
Mr Metry said while the pandemic brought his business to a halt, he is hopeful things can get back to normal by 2022.
So, here goes.
Here’s what was said. When the first Victori-
“Your normal chicken that you buy at Coles or Woolworths in a bag is 1.8kg dressed weight and is 32 days old,” he said.
“Pure bred birds are booming, it's a boom in- dustry,” he said.
an lockdowns decimated his work, third genera- tion Lebanese-Australian poultry auctioneer Bra- ham Metry reinvented his business the old-fash- ioned way.
“Now there's nowhere you can go pick up birds, you can't do anything.
“I did an auction in Melbourne and then Mr Andrews, Premier of Vic- toria, shut me down the next day – though not him personally.”
“Sorry I can't describe it better.
“Unfortunately, I'm go- ing to be one of these nas- ty people and say if you're not fully vaccinated then please don't come and see me,” he said.
Mr Metry said when the auctions stopped he start- ed breeding commercial roosters.
“I use them for Leba- nese cooking.”
“I wish everybody well.
“I auctioned in Mel- bourne for a number of years to people who came and got birds that they would take home and eat themselves,” he said.
Mr Metry said while it may seem old-fashioned, eating roosters is very common practice.
“Let's get this pandemic over with,” he concluded. I read elsewhere that Braham sometimes refers to his roosters as ‘oner- ous hens’ and ‘industrial
“It's just not what they are used to.
“It's nostalgia.”
Five times a year he would sell up to 15,000
“We use old-fashioned roosters, which weigh 4-6kg and take six months to grow.
“It's like a farmer sow- ing a crop.
birds from across the country at auctions in Melbourne and Euroa, but since the pandemic began everything has been put on pause.
“They grow quickly, they're soft, and they taste different.
“The idea of growing these roosters now is about looking six months ahead.
“My business closed on February 23, 2020,” said Mr Metry, who resides in Albury NSW and has been in the industry for 31 years.
“What does rooster taste like?
“We are sowing our crop for six months in the future."
“Well, it tastes like chicken.
Mr Metry hopes poul- try auctions in Euora will start back up again in March.
“But they do taste dif- ferent.
“There's a lot less fat on them,” he said.
“People for the past 5000 years have always eaten roosters,” he said.
roosters’.
No matter the nick-
“The old-fashioned roosters that I grow are often called hard chick- en.”
“It's our modern-day society where people
names, they remain rulers of the flavour roost.
Page 4 – National Poultry Newspaper, October 2021
“People from Asia and the Middle East, they
Roosters such as this one are full of flavour.
www.poultrynews.com.au
He said the demand for hard chicken is high in migrant communities who prefer old-fashioned birds.
“Back in the days of the depression, people in Albury Wodonga had chooks in the backyard and would kill their own poultry,” he said.
“The European mi- grants who did were mostly customers at my family's auctions.
“These families are now two or three gen- erations on and it's the new migrants who buy my chooks.