Poultry

“Chicken was something of a luxury in the Szechwan countryside, but we raised our own and ate it every week. We ate eggs several times a week,” recalls Mrs. Chiang. “We kept about a hundred chickens, feisty, independent birds that roosted in a rough shed behind the house and ran free in the yard, scratching up insects and little bits of grain left over from the harvest. They were all raised for our dinner table, although my father sometimes sold eggs fertilized by his best rooster to the neighbors, who would add the chicks to their own flocks.