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Diane Toth, age 12, of Niagara Falls, Ontario, Canada, for her question:

WHAT IS A ROCK CORNISH HEN?

The plump little Rock Cornish hen is just the right size to serve a hungry man for dinner. Nowadays, we find them frozen in the supermarkets. Yet a few decades ago he did not exist. Meantime, as we know, several animal species have become extinct. But this little chicken is a brand new variety.

The ancestors of our domestic chickens were wild jungle fowl, who scratched for a living in the warm jungles of Asia. Nobody knows when the first ones were domesticated, but it must have been thousands of years ago. Through the ages, the meatiest types and the best egg layers were selected for breeding. Nowadays, we have more than 50 standard breeds, with almost 200 different varieties, each with its own special good qualities.

The Rock Cornish hen is named for two of his famous ancestors, from whom he inherited an extra plump breast of extra tender meat. He was bred by crossing two meaty types and appeared on the market in the 1950s.

One of his ancestors was the Plymouth Rock; the other was the Cornish hen. The white or handsomely speckled Plymouth is a meaty bird, also famous as a good producer of eggs. He belongs in the American poultry class, most of which were bred in the 1800s.

The Cornish chickens belong in the English poultry class. They are very large table birds with wide chests, especially bred to produce lots of meat. Their crossbred offspring, the Rock Cornish hen, inherited these extra meaty qualities from both his parents.

If left to grow up, the Rock Cornish hen becomes a fairly normal size chicken. However, breeders decided that many people would like to have a meaty little chicken, just big enough for a single serving. For this reason this unusual new fowl is sent to market at the age of only six weeks, when he or she weighs about one and a quarter pounds.

At this age, the chicks of other poultry are scrawny teen agers, mostly skin and bones.  But the unusual Rock Cornish chick already has developed his meaty breast. Though still too costly to serve very often, he makes a special treat for those who wish to eat a whole chicken for dinner.

 

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