History of Cornish Game Hens

Video Transcript

"Hi! I'm Mark Alyn for Expert Village. We've already cooked on the grill our cornish game hens. Before we put them into the sauce and make the sauce, I want to give you a little bit of history about these wonderful birds. In 1950 in Connecticut, a farmer who was raising guniea hens had an accident. He lost them all so he cross bred a variety of chickens and came up with the rock cornish game hen. Let's take the look at game hen. You know that you think someone is going to go out there and shoot these hens, they just grow them. They usually are harvested between 4 and 6 weeks old and they are always according to the US Government Regulations under 2 pounds each. One is perfect, you know for the average man or woman to eat as an en tree. I always cut them in half because my family are light eaters and we only eat a half per serving. One of the other things about this, is it is all white meat. White meat is the favorite meat of Americans. I'm a dark meat eater. Why do I eat these things. I have to sauce them up to give them flavor. White meat on a turkey is dry to me, white meat on a chicken is dry and white meat even on a cornish game hen can be plump, though it can be juicy is often to me dry and the flavor is not as strong as dark meat. Calorie wise, white meat is not necessarily lower in fat than dark meat like a thigh. In fact, there have been studies now and I am sure they are going to go back and forth on this to give us more information that we won't know what to do with that you can eat some chicken skin and it is actually good for you. So enjoy the skin as long as you don't deep fry it. "