The changing chicken: Chooks, cooks and culinary culture.

Dixon J, University of NSW Press, Sydney, 2002, 211 pages, $39.95, ISBN 0-86840-477-2

No doubt there are a growing number of people today who cannot remember when chicken meals were a luxury. Indeed, chicken is now so common, both inside and outside the home, it is hard to imagine that not too long ago it was a food reserved for high-days and holidays. In Australia chicken consumption has out-paced traditional meats like lamb and mutton, and is fast catching up to beef in the popularity stakes.

How and why chicken became so popular is the subject of The changing chicken: Chooks, cooks and culinary culture by Jane Dixon, a sociologist who is currently a researcher at the Australian National University. This is, however, not merely a history of the chicken industry. It is a book about modern food systems, or more correctly, transformtaions in the Australian food supply. Chicken is thus examined as a symbol of modern culinary dynamism. Books on culinary dynamism are rare. I can think of only two others that have attempted to document our changing food system: Michael Symon's One continuous picnic and Sarah Sargent's The foodmakers, both out of print, sadly.

Dixon's book on chicken draws on a range of material, theroretical and empirical, market research, newspaper reports, focus groups with consumers, retailers and producers plus her own direct observations of the stages of chicken processing. In this way The changing chicken provides a rich insight into chicken culture in the home, the supermarket and the factory.

The first few chapters lay out a background and theoretical frameworks for the analysis. Chapter 2 is key here because it examines the power structure within the food supply. The author challenges conventional theses which maintain that control over the food supply has moved from producers to consumers, that is from a Marxist critique of commodities to a neo-liberal account. The changing chicken demonstrates how retailers are in fact the real power brokers in the food supply. Chapter 3 extends this argument to show how supermarkets started the trend in frozen chickens in order to give the commodity a longer shelf life. However, frozen chicken lacked versatility and did not stretch the minds of consumers beyond the usual roast bird. Chicken pieces, on the other hand, could be promoted as mid-week meals, in the same league as chops or sausages. A change in status of chicken followed. Crucial to this change was the move to so-called 'cool chain' technology. Chilled chicken was not only more convenient, but also addressed the image problem consumers had with frozen chicken when they saw a release of 'floods of water' on thawing. Chilled chicken, although more expensive, was regarded as better value. What is more, an endless variety of pre-prepared raw and processed chicken products--breasts, thighs, sausages--began appearing on the market. The ideas behind these moves came from large retail chains in the UK, and later, Australia. Supermarkets especially were able to promote chicken using the now common mantra 'choice, convenience and cleanliness'.

In Chapter 4 we see the extraordinary ambivalence and contradictory values consumers have about chicken through the results of focus groups and consumers. On the one hand is the acknowledgment that chicken is a healthy, convenient alternative to red meat. On the other hand, is a fear and loathing of chicken processing (intensive production methods and believed use of hormones as growth promoters). Despite reservations about battery chickens, however, there is surprisingly little consumer resistance to factory chooks. As the author says, there would be much more to report if this had been a review of egg layers. Consumers are apparently happy to let table birds off the moral hook because of pressures to create and maintain harmony around family meals. Chicken is easy to cook, it is a great crowd-pleaser, especially with children, and moreoever, health experts endorse it. Such a combination is indeed rare.

I found the next two chapters the most interesting because the author takes a first-hand look at the chicken industry, through detailed observations of rearing, processing and retailing practices and by talking to key people on the way. The history of the vertical integration and gradual concentration of the chicken industry is well explained.

No book on chicken would be complete without a discussion of the rise and rise of the takeaway or 'home meal replacement' market. Later chapters of the book tackle the production, and re-imaging of Kentucky Fried Chicken as KFC, with an interesting account of the failure of a product called TenderRoast. The final chapter examines the culture of chicken industries overseas.

One of the central themes in this book is that chicken has not needed a singular marketing organisation to promote its value. On the contrary, chicken represents a range of virtues, and chicken producers and distributors have been happy to let others do all the promoting. These have included not just supermarkets, home economists, food writers and magazine publishers but, in an era of lipophobia, medical scientists, nutritionists, dietitians, and health workers genrally have played a vital role in increasing the public's appetite for chicken. Even organisations like the National Heart Foundation have done their bit promoting the 'nutritionalisation' of chicken.

The changing chicken is a fascinating account of the commodification of a popular food. One advantage is that the book can be read on a number of levels. For example, it is possible to pick through facts and figures, much as I have done for this review. But remembering that this is an examination of the social life of the chicken, the book also contains some weighty material on cultural theory and the sociology of production and consumption for readers wanting substantial theoretical insights.

The changing chicken will be useful for students and academics interested in food studies, food technology and food policy.

John Coveney 

Department of Public Health

Flinders University of South Australia