Ordinary supermarket chickens, raised industrially in close quarters, are more likely to be contaminated with salmonella than old-fashioned farm chickens that can roam around and scratch.

Yet both free-range and kosher chicken cost up to three times as much a pound than plain old supermarket chicken and some people get cooks' block when faced with such precious fowl.

Instead it feels as if I have a head full of warm, moist matter; grey and lardy and useless, the kind of thing you find wrapped in plastic inside a supermarket chicken.

Fresh free seabass is better than cheap supermarket chicken.

So do recent findings that report the widespread occurrence of the campylobacter bacterium in supermarket chickens.

Your supermarket chicken may be to blame.

A USDA study discovered E. coli (Biotype I) in 99% of supermarket chicken, the result of chicken butchering not being a sterile process.

"One guy called from an airplane over Colorado," said Mr. Iacono, whose chicken costs $2.20 a pound, or about twice the price of supermarket chicken.

Ordinary three-pound supermarket chickens emerged after 20 minutes with the skin beautifully crisped, yet with the breast meat exceptionally juicy.

Now they're much more tightly bound to a wider culture, from TV chefs to supermarket chickens to farmers' markets.