Rising prices turn penny-pinchers into butchers; 'Depression recipes'

"Rising prices for packaged chicken breasts, thighs and wings can leave a consumer squawking: Enough is enough.

Egged on by the high cost of chicken parts, Simon Kirsch, a 33-year-old tech worker from Portland, Ore., decided to spring for the whole bird and take it apart himself.

"I couldn't justify spending that money," he says.

A few online tutorials and messily butchered chickens later, he no longer is winging it. Now, "breaking down a chicken is pretty fast," says Mr. Kirsch. He even spent about $10 on chicken shears to get super close to the bones, which he saves for making soup stock. He dresses that up with bargain veggies, such as onions, potatoes and celery.

Before inflation, he says, "I wasn't, like, making soup on the weekends."

Roasting whole chickens is nothing new for many cooks, of course, but rampant inflation is introducing a new flock to the practice.

Rising grocery-store bills also are leading savvy consumers to try pickling, canning and inexpensive recipes such as potato pancakes.

A whole chicken costs less than the sum of its parts. Breasts and boneless, skinless thighs are more expensive on a per-pound basis than buying the whole bird and cutting it up at home. Over the years, Americans have grown more willing to pay the premium to have the yucky stuff done for them, rather than hacking up the whole bird themselves.

Rookie whole-chicken chefs have been rudely introduced to giblets, struggled to carve around bone and ended up with more leftovers than they know what to do with.

As of last week, the price for a whole chicken, on average, was $1.56 a pound, according to the USA Agriculture Department, up from $1.09 a year ago. Boneless, skinless chicken breast prices were $4.26 a pound, up from $2.46 a year ago.

Whole chicken sales aren't soaring, but a longtime decline in sales of whole birds has slowed a bit in recent months.

"Is it just the fan club? A small group that's really buying?" says Chris Dubois, a poultry-market strategist at IRI Worldwide, an analytics and market research company, about whole-chicken sales.

Consumers are hungry for all sorts of new ways to save money at the market.

"With inflation rising, what are some modern day 'depression' recipes?" asked a Reddit thread started earlier this year. It has 980 replies, including chatter about getting creative with cabbage.

Contributors advise how to use every last part of the chicken, with one suggesting simmering the bones to make a broth for a "garbage" soup that includes scraps such as carrot peels and onion skins.

Meanwhile, a YouTube show that first got attention during the financial crisis of 2008, called "Great Depression Cooking," is garnering interest again.

Clara Cannucciari, who died at age 98 in 2013, lived through the Great Depression near Chicago and posted videos about how her Sicilian-American parents stretched food in dire times.

Christopher Cannucciari, her 43-year-old grandson, says the page got tens of thousands of more views than usual in May. The channel has drawn thousands more subscribers in recent months than it usually adds, he says.

Fans reach out to him personally or leave comments on old videos, such as the popular "Poorman's Meal" -- fried potatoes, onions and hot dogs -- expressing their gratitude, he says.

Leslie Rittoper, 67, of Northumberland, Pa., says her average bill at the grocery store -- to shop for herself, her adult daughter and perhaps a few nearby family members -- has gone from just above $100 to well over $200.

"I started making whole chickens or cornish hens or turkeys," she says. "And if I make a large amount, which I almost always do, I almost always overcook," which often leaves her with a freezer full of leftover chicken. "I also give extra to my neighbors."

Ms. Rittoper also started gardening -- tomatoes, onions, lettuces, celery, cucumbers, zucchini -- to slice her produce bill.

Now, at the grocery store, she strolls right past the produce aisle. "I can see the difference," she says. "The tomatoes are much smaller and they're not juicy. They don't taste as good."

Jamie Harmon, who home-schools her three children near Pocatello, Idaho, runs the food blog Coffee With Us 3, with two friends. She says readers are buzzing about recipes such as the Chocolate Coffee Depression Cake, which is made without any eggs, milk or butter.

Ms. Harmon also has seen an uptick in recipes for cooking basics like taco seasoning and pancake mix.

"It only costs pennies to make most of those things," she says.

Ms. Harmon and her colleagues also are pushing whole birds, including a recipe for an Instant Pot Balsamic Thyme Whole Chicken.

Jan Wardell, who is 71 and also lives in Pocatello, bought a whole chicken recently but is ruling it out for the future. There was too much chicken.

"You don't want to have the same meal over and over and over until it's gone," she says.

But she isn't throwing any away. "I'm too cheap for that," she says.” [1]

1.  Consumers Are Giving Inflation The Bird -- With a Whole Chicken --- Rising prices turn penny-pinchers into butchers; 'Depression recipes'
Jamerson, Joshua. 
Wall Street Journal, Eastern edition; New York, N.Y. [New York, N.Y]. 13 July 2022: A.1.