Thanh Chuong Chicken - a brand of a hilly region

(Baonghean) - Being a lowland mountainous district, except for a few communes located along the Lam River, Thanh Chuong is a series of bowl-shaped hills. There, under the jackfruit canopy, the palm hills stretch out, the chickens leisurely foraging for food have created a unique brand - Thanh Chuong hill chicken, adding a unique dish of this land in addition to ash fruit and jackfruit pickle.

From a specialty dish

The brand name “Thanh Chuong Hill Chicken” has existed for a long time, not only in the pride of every Thanh Chuong child far from home, but also familiar to every Nghe An resident. Since ancient times, starting from wild jungle fowls, our ancestors have brought them back, domesticated them, and passed them down from generation to generation to create a breed of chicken with delicious, firm meat that is difficult to be confused with any other breed of chicken raised in any other region. No one knows when the profession of raising hill chickens in Thanh Chuong began. The old men and women who are nearly a hundred years old only know that when they began to perceive the things around them, in the garden, on the hill, the chickens were diligently digging for worms and ants every day. Mrs. Nguyen Thi Bien (Hamlet 1, Thanh My Commune) is over 80 years old this year. Her eyes are dim, her legs are slow, but except for the times when she is sick in bed, she never forgets to feed her chickens corn and rice.

For a woman who has reached this “rare” age, it is not only a lifeline, a way to make a living during difficult days, a new pair of sandals, notebooks for her children to go to school, a luxurious dish to entertain guests on death anniversaries and holidays, but also a deep attachment, a love for the barren hills, for the poor countryside. In the past, when people did not have enough to eat, chickens were raised very simply, almost no house had a chicken coop. Every morning, after the “chut chut” sound of grandmothers and mothers, the flock of chickens rushed out, competing to pick up the few corn and rice grains scattered on the yard, then spread out, wandering from one hill to another to look for food, picking up every worm, termite, even eating grass.

Every afternoon, when the sunset falls on the village roofs, the chickens automatically return, enjoying once again the meager "ration" of corn, rice, and cassava for the day, then automatically find a place on guava trees, longan trees, buffalo pens, or burrow into a warm pile of straw. In those days, chickens were precious pets. Every time a family got married, no matter how poor they were, they tried to save a pair of chickens, and when they were better off, they had a few more pots, as the initial provisions for a couple to build a new, warm and happy family. Those "young people", when they moved out, all heard the strict instructions of their parents and grandparents, those chickens, no matter how difficult it was, were not to be sold or slaughtered, because otherwise, it would be very difficult for them to rebuild the chicken flock. I don't know if it was true or not, but in reality, those chickens that were given as the first capital were all carefully cared for by the young couples. Perhaps, in addition to that somewhat "mysterious" belief, for them, it is also a memory, a sacred feeling, a trust, a sincere wish for a prosperous life in the hearts of their parents.

Raising chickens in Thanh My commune (Thanh Chuong).

There are also many interesting stories associated with chickens. In the old Cat Van commune, from the days when a family with a few dozen chickens was considered the most prosperous in the village, until today, when a family with hundreds of chickens in the garden and hills is considered normal, there still exist "chicken guilds" - a beautiful feature imbued with the spirit of village and neighborly love. If people outside the ward, when getting married, find it difficult to find enough hill chickens to make a feast even though they have told everyone in the village, then for those who participate in this guild, it is completely simple. Each family in the ward will be responsible for contributing 2 kg of chicken to the "homeowner", and it rotates like that, no one is at a disadvantage.

Thanh Chuong hill chicken is delicious thanks to many factors. The ant chicken breed is small, not very productive, even if raised for a long time, it will only weigh 1.5 kg or less, but the meat is impeccable. The chickens run around on the hills all day, eating corn, rice, worms and ants, and few households use industrial feed. That's why, when coming to the hills of Thanh Chuong now, wanting to buy a "genuine" hill chicken like this is not easy. In the past, when the family had guests, or had to work, there was chicken on the dinner table, everything from clothes, books, school fees for children... depended on it. Now that life has improved, Thanh Chuong people almost only raise hill chickens to eat and give as gifts, but refuse to sell them, except in cases where they need money, they just hold the chicken before they even get to the market and someone comes to pick them up and asks to buy them. Or in the village, in the neighborhood, there are families organizing weddings for their children, they tell them in advance, the relatives respect and help each other, contributing to sell a few chickens for each family to prepare for the feast.

Anyone who is from Thanh Chuong, no matter how far away, cannot forget the dish of chicken soup. It is probably due to hunger and poverty that Thanh Chuong has the famous dish of chicken soup. The chicken is chopped into small pieces, marinated with spices and left for half an hour to absorb before being put on the stove to boil. When the chicken is cooked, take it down, sprinkle some Vietnamese coriander leaves, thinly sliced ​​lemongrass, and mix well. Just open the pot lid, the sweet, unmistakable aroma of chicken mixed with Vietnamese coriander, lemongrass, shallots, turmeric, and fresh chili will rise up. Perhaps only in Thanh Chuong can there be chicken balls. All the bones are thrown away, only the bones of the body, the backbone, and the neck bone are minced, not ground, and mixed with Vietnamese coriander, fresh chili, and turmeric, only fresh turmeric is used, not turmeric powder. This dish, which was made use of during the famine, has now become an extremely popular specialty. Put the chicken ball in your mouth, the rich sweetness melts, permeates the tip of your tongue, anyone who tastes it once will find it hard to forget.

To new thinking and ways of doing business

On the last afternoon of the year, sitting on the smooth-running motorbike of the office staff of the Thanh My mountainous commune's party committee of Thanh Chuong district, passing through almost all 15 hamlets of the commune, wherever you go, you will see roosters, mother hens and chicks running around or wandering around looking for food under the tree canopy of the hill, creating a peaceful and warm scene. The chicken farm of Mr. Tran Cong Son's family (hamlet 13 Thanh My) is located on a hill. There has been a "tradition" of raising hill chickens since ancient times, but about 4 years ago, in his family's hill garden, having a few hundred chickens was considered a lot. But with the property of several large hills, while he realized, especially during the holidays, free-range chickens were popular, sought after but expensive but still not available for sale, Mr. Son's unit was the 324th Division in Do Luong, sometimes needed to buy tons but could not collect them.

So he discussed with his wife, focusing on raising free-range chickens on an industrial scale. A clean, spacious barn system was built, in addition to raising meat chickens with an output of nearly 2 tons/year, the farm also produces breeding chickens with an automatic incubator, selling about 30,000 breeding chickens each year. Because of the large-scale, commodity-based farming, the husband and wife's farming method has some differences from the traditional way of raising hill chickens. Chickens are raised in barns, especially chicks under a month old, in the cold season they are kept in barns, with an electric heating system, the mother hens are fully vaccinated, and raised separately from the broiler chickens. And especially, while people still mainly let chickens mate freely, Mr. Son's unchangeable principle is to never inbreed. Although the farm has very beautiful roosters, he still travels across the district to Do Luong to buy 60-70 roosters at a time to mate with hens, in order to maintain the quality of the chicken flock.

In the house there is a threshing machine, each crop season, he buys dozens of tons of corn and rice to make chicken feed, industrial feed is only considered a solution when rice and corn are too expensive. Although raised on a large scale, there are principles that he and his wife firmly maintain. The chickens on the farm are all free-range chickens, there are no hybrid chickens, "industrial chickens". Every day, when the sun comes up, the chickens are released on the hills, eating additional food they find themselves. Therefore, although they are not hill chickens that are free-ranged by people, which are extremely popular with gourmets, the chickens on Mr. Son's family farm are always in high demand. He said: the meat chickens here are raised for 4-4.5 months before being sold, not just 3 months like hybrid chickens, but the roosters only weigh 1.8-2.2 kg, the hens 1.4-1.6 kg, which is "full gold" and not any bigger, the meat is delicious and firm.

Thanh Chuong is a district with potential for developing hill chickens. Except for some plain communes located along the Lam River, the rest of the district has about 32 communes with relatively large areas of hill gardens, which can raise hill chickens. The district is also in a favorable geographical position, with Ho Chi Minh Road and National Highway 46 running through it, convenient for trade and travel to the South and the North. In addition, with about 6,000 hectares of corn and 13,000 hectares of rice each year, and located next to localities specializing in agricultural production such as Do Luong and Nam Dan, the source of food for chickens is abundant. "All of these factors, plus the fact that Thanh Chuong hill chickens already have a "brand" among the people, have motivated us to be determined to build a Thanh Chuong hill chicken brand" - Deputy Secretary of Thanh Chuong District Party Committee - Mr. Dang Anh Dung said.

In the past five or seven years, many households have increased their farming scale spontaneously, with about 1,500-2,000 chickens/farm, concentrated in the hilly communes of Thanh My, Thanh Chi, Thanh Ngoc... To learn from experience, Thanh Chuong organized for district leaders, communes and some households with conditions to develop hill chickens to visit and learn from experience in the Yen The hill chicken area (Bac Giang). Through the survey, Thanh Chuong even has more advantages than this famous hill chicken farming area, in a large area, with extremely convenient transportation. Currently, the district has an idea to build a project to promote the development of hill chicken farming in the direction of farms, striving to achieve a minimum of 1,000 chickens/household for registered households. The district will organize instructions on promulgating technical procedures for raising chickens according to the correct process, and at the same time, form a number of households raising chicken breeds to provide breeds for households raising meat chickens, and register the Thanh Chuong hill chicken brand.

Article and photos:Phu Huong