When I was a wee little boy, I started working in our local grocery store. It was more of an institution than a store. It was the hub of our little map dot community. It was where folks came to buy groceries, but it was where I learned so much about the store business and life itself. Oh, how the memories linger still in the recesses of my mind.
I was only nine years old when I first started working there. I had to stand on top of a Coca-Cola crate to be able to reach the top of the meat counter to wrap packages. My height deficiency was not a deterrent however as I dove headfirst into my duties at the store. I loved them all, but working in the market and cutting meat was my true love.
I was trained by an old school butcher, Bill Rountree, who had been trained by his father. He taught me how to cut steaks, stew beef, roasts and how to make sausage from his father’s recipe. He taught me an endless array of things about cutting meat. I have carried that knowledge that he bestowed upon me throughout my life, and it continues to serve me well.
One of my fondest memories is how Bill taught me to cut up a chicken. Country style. With a pulley bone of course. Bill would let me practice if my mama or my Bigma came in to get a chicken. They were my guinea pigs so to speak. If I messed up, they would make do with whatever I had done wrong in the cutting process.
With time, a lot of practice and a fair amount of patience I learned to properly cut up a chicken to fry. We cut them up on old, wooden meat blocks. Those meat blocks had seen a lot of use and were well worn from years of service. I became quite proficient at cutting up chickens. I could cut one up in twenty-eight seconds flat and it was ready to meet its destiny in a skillet of hot oil.
The memories of nearly fifty years ago are flooding my mind as I type out these words. Those were truly some of the best days of my life. After the chicken was cut up to fry, it was then wrapped in white butcher paper and sealed off with a piece of tape. It was weighed and the price was written, by hand, on that butcher paper with a “marker” that held a black crayon inside.
We sold chickens in two different sizes, a two and half pound model and a two-and three-quarter pound model. They were fryers, more accurately they were frying size. Those little chickens, after being properly seasoned and fried to perfection in some hot oil, were the best I’ve ever eaten.
Old grocery stores with the meat market in the back are basically a thing of the past. There are no more wooden meat blocks, no big rolls of white butcher paper and black markers. Thank the good Lord above for allowing me to experience those days early in my life. Those days long ago and those little chickens helped to grow me into the man I am today.
Those small chickens, the ones that were frying size no longer exist in this fast-paced world we live in today. It is truly a pity and a shame that you cannot go to the grocery store and buy a frying size chicken. I went to buy a few chickens about three weeks ago. I was planning a meal for some friends. I had chicken on my mind.
I went to the grocery store, made my way to the back of the building where the meat is located. I looked through all of the selection of whole fryers on display. The smallest thing they had was over five pounds. I bought some pork chops instead. My Bigma would roll over in her grave.
You might make dumplings with a five-pound chicken. Maybe. I don’t cook or eat chickens that big. I make no exceptions on my self-imposed rule either. Despite the fact that so many things have changed over the years, I still have an abundance of memories from simpler times - simpler times when you could walk in Rountree’s Grocery and get a frying size chicken. It would be cut up to fry with a pulley bone by a nine-year-old boy with a big smile on his face.
