A new Walmart opened near me, and unlike the old one, this one is half super market. So I gave it a try. Among other things I brought home a seven-pound chicken, a little bigger than the ones I normally buy. Well, I roasted it, and it turned out to be the toughest bird I’ve ever tried to eat. The meat cannot be separated from the bone, and I think I need a hack saw just to slice it. Even the joints are difficult to cut through. What little I could get off was too tough to chew. So the only thing to do is put it into a large pot and make soup.
So why was this chicken so tough? Does Walmart get inferior chickens? Should I not get one this large? Is a seven-pound chicken too old to roast? Was it a one-time thing, and the next one I buy there (if I do) should be ok?
A chicken that big is usually a stewing chicken. Roasters generally top off at 5 pounds, and fryers and broilers at at less than that. Did it say what kind of chicken it was on the bag?
At any rate, my guess is that it was an older chicken not meant for the oven, but for the pot. This is not a bad thing, you just need to use it for the right application. Stewing chickens are great in, well, stews and for broth. They have a bit more fat and flavor, but they’re not good for the type of application you were going for.
My local Walmart has a supermarket, too - I tend to not buy meat there, though, because it’s never very good. I don’t know where they get their meat, but it is not the good stuff.
[QUOTE=Cat Whisperer]
My local Walmart has a supermarket, too - I tend to not buy meat there, though, because it’s never very good. I don’t know where they get their meat, but it is not the good stuff.
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Odd. After seeing Gordon Ramsay flogging the stuff, I decided to try Walmart beef, and their steaks are much better than the “certified angus” at the local grocery store. I’m sure a good butcher would have better, but there aren’t any of those in my neighborhood.
Mass-produced pre-packaged chickens are probably going to be the same from store to store, so long as you get the right kind. Yes, I’ve made the mistake of buying a stewing chicken and trying to rotisserie the thing. It was inedible.
That is interesting - I haven’t had any meat from Walmart that I’d consider as good as the stuff I get from Safeway, so I haven’t tried it in a while. Maybe I’ll take a walk over to Walmart this week and see if I can find out where their beef comes from (I’d hope to see some locally-sourced beef - I live in the middle of beef ranching territory).
Costco is the one that actually has some pretty darned good beef. I don’t shop there terribly often (at least not often enough to make my membership really worth it), but when I do, beef is what I get. It’s usually the steaks I go for, as none of the local groceries around me have steak that I really like. The stewing beef is fine at these stores, and cheaper, but the steaks have left much to be desired. Plus Costco, depending on the store, often stocks prime grade beef, which is what I usually go for when I’m in that very rare mood for steak.
I don’t buy meat from Walmart, either, but it’s not because I have anything against their meats (I haven’t tried them.) It’s just that I don’t buy anything from Walmart if I can avoid it, because the ones near me are fucking zoos with the most ill-behaved individuals and children I have ever encountered anywhere.
I’m wary of their steaks after getting a batch with what looked and felt like little metal BBs embedded in the meat. Nobody broke a tooth, thank goodness, but it was weird. Costco’s good about refunds, though!
I say “around me” because I’ve actually been to nice, normal Walmarts while traveling through the Southwest. It was an eye opening experience for me. The Walmarts down there also sold firearms and ammunition.
Ah, you feel my pain. It was like night and day when I walked into the Walmart on Cicero and just wanted to murder … anything … and then went a half block up the road to the Target, which was like an oasis of cleanliness and calm. I couldn’t believe how much of a difference there was in the clientele between the two stores, as I’ve never thought of them as that much different.
That place is just crazypants. Was it “remodeling?” It’s been remodeling for six years now, I swear. Literal tunnels of stacked boxes to walk through and plastic sheets ductaped to the ceiling to make dust curtains. Or maybe to hide the bodies, I’m not sure.
I was at 83rd just east of Vincennes today. Ucky store, small and filthy and shelves only half stocked, but not quite as house of horrors as the one on Cicero. But they had no cayenne pepper. WTF? Not even a shelf marker for it. I would have been willing to buy McCormick, I’m so desperate for cayenne pepper, but nope. Had to make another stop. Fuck Walmart.
It was like night and day when I walked into the Walmart on Cicero and just wanted to murder … anything … and then went a half block up the road to the Target, which was like an oasis of cleanliness and calm. I couldn’t believe how much of a difference there was in the clientele between the two stores, as I’ve never thought of them as that much different.