A street smart chicken also forages for food, eating all kinds of insects that it finds while scratching. Free space to run about also helps develop sinewy muscles.

An industrialized chicken loses it’s “street smarts”, factor out breed for now, because it’s diet is more homogenized and it has limited space to play.

The word “free” in American free range chicken is actually a bit misleading. The amount of space is controlled to varying degrees, too much running about and the chickens toughen up.

Anyway, does good Ethiopian food require long slow cooking? I’m thinking of the North African preference for road runners and free-spirited chickens from family farms or small farms. French coq au vin also requires and old rooster. Long, slow cooking with spices or an acid component favors tougher birds.

Freshly slaughtered chickens also tend to have a more intense chicken flavor. Even in Los Angeles we have live poultry stores that cater to clients (usually from Latin America or Asia) who want chickens with more flavor. Is this something that can be integrated into what farmers and extensionists are already doing? Have customers choose a live chicken to be freshly “prepped” to take home for cooking?

I am fairly certain that in North Africa the commercialization of chicken grew hand in hand with a whole bunch of other factors. For example, the need to conserve fuel and time, the 30 minute pressure cooker versus the 5 hour clay tagine. Cooking methods not only effect the flavor of a finished dish, but also dictate the kind of protein that’s desirable to begin with.

As far as “industrialized” chicken parts are concerned in North Africa, the legs trump breasts in customer appeal. More flavor, flesh that requires longer cooking time than breast and holds up to spices and aromatics. I think the breasts are used for processed products.

Hope this helps, I’m trying to offer various transitional examples.