many of my classes told me recently it had been the most useful to him.

Before the first one, I timed myself showing how to debone the leg-thighs and breasts, thinking that was probably something many people had never done. I’d figured on demonstrating with a whole chicken, then have half the students do half a chicken, then the rest deboning the remaining half.

What I hadn’t realized, much less planned for, was the fact that no one knew how to cut up a chicken, much less deboning one. As a result, the class took almost two hours longer than I’d planned; thankfully, it was on a Saturday morning; if it had been a night class, we wouldn’t have finished until almost midnight! In a dozen repeats, with a dozen people per class, only one person, an 80-year-old woman, knew how to cut up a chicken.

You’re probably not surprised by this, but I sure was. I’ve been cutting up whole chickens for so long that it never even occurred to me that it wasn’t something most every cook knew how to do. Apparently it’s a skill that’s been lost with the convenience and cheapness of buying already cut birds. It’s still a skill worth having and using for, among others, economic, environmental and culinary reasons. I’ve written about those reasons in past IT columns and articles, most recently in my 5/28/09 column, White Meat vs. Dark.

Once learned (and with practice), cutting up a chicken is quick and easy. Even now, with limited mobility in my right shoulder and arm, it only takes me five minutes – and only a few minutes more to completely debone it.

Kennedy’s cooking demonstrations will be at 10 a.m., 11 a.m., and 12 p.m. I’ll be cutting up chickens at 10:30 a.m. and 11:30 a.m.

Contact Julianne Glatz at [email protected].