I’m waiting for my chicken to be slaughtered at Hempstead Poultry Farms in Hempstead Village. I’m in a little room with a cashier’s window on one wall and a group of Spanish-speaking customers, including some children, for whom this seems to be as fun as a petting zoo. But this is as different from a farm or zoo as you can imagine and representative of other live poultry markets, like Westbury Live Poultry and the hundred or so urban-style operations throughout the five boroughs.
Photo by Jenn Richards
Chickens, ducks, geese, pheasants, hens and even pigeons, stacked in cages six high, are squawking, ready for the kill. Extra turkeys will be shipped in soon—mostly from upstate New York, some from as far as Maine—for Thanksgiving.
Suffolk County has its live poultry farms, situated mainly in the bucolic farm country in and near the East End. But a little-known secret are the city-style live poultry markets of Nassau County. Way less picturesque than the pastoral scenes in Suffolk, these are warehouses full of live poultry offering the freshest turkey you’ll ever serve to the family.
They’re not highly visible like in Queens, for example, where operations like these are found on Steinway Street and College Point Boulevard in storefront shops.
Here on Long Island, they’re found in warehouse areas, on the down low, invisible to most Long Islanders but well known among the Latin community.
Trying to pass for a local I order “uno pollo” from the guy; he answers, “One chicken?” He opens a cage, grabs one by its legs, ties it to the hanging scale, brings it to the back room and returns with my number and weight on a ticket. He asks if I want it cut up but I opt for the whole bird. In about 15 minutes I’m handed a black plastic bag, feet sticking out, minus its head and feathers. Fresh killed poultry has a fresher, bolder flavor.
It is usually recommended that birds be refrigerated for 24 hours to let the flesh settle so it won’t be tough. If you’re intent on a fresh turkey for Thanksgiving you can reserve by phone in advance. My chicken is a whopping seven pounds and costs $2 per pound (turkeys are $2.25 per pound). I have no buyer’s remorse—even after I get it home, pluck a few remaining feathers and cut off its feet and neck—but I’m glad there are no lambs or bunnies on display.
Hempstead Poultry Farms
39 Newmans Ct., Hempstead
516-485-6564
Westbury Live Poultry
40 Urban Ave., Westbury
516-334-7599
You’re right, Scott. Fresh doesn’t neccesarily mean better tasting. Free range tastes much better. I roasted this one and the taste was barely better than the packaged supermarket kind and therefore not worth the time and expense, other than for a different food experience on LI.
Freshly killed chickens from chicken mills like this are little better that supermarket chickens. It’s what the chicken eats that’s important, not how recently it was slaughtered–commercial freezing is quite effective (the biggest concern is how frozen it remains until it gets to the consumer).
The taste of a farm-raised chicken–one that has free run of a field for most of its food–will put a chicken like this to shame.