What I am curious to know is: are the chickens rotating around the grill from battery farming like we have back here in South Africa, or would certain delicatessens serve up a farmed chicken?
Reason: I have the opportunity to wander through the various markets around Paris and buy a decent free-ranging chicken off someones farm - then go and roast it at the apartment. Lots of time taken up with this route but might be worth the effort?

Those rotisseries have both kinds -- battery chickens and farm chickens. In my neighbourhood (you know where, tod), the ordinary roast chickens go for 4€ and the farm chickens are 7€. I think in certain parts of town, the prices are double.

But you know what? I have bought both in the past, and have stopped buying the farm chickens: they are too dry and stringy for my taste.

It's entirely up to you. You can shop for "free-range", or the even better "Bresse" (also pricier) chickens at local rotisseries. Especially awesome are the available potatoes roasted in the dripings below.

Those rotisseries are specialized equipment...do you REALLY think you can duplicate same in an apartment - most have no oven and only some sort of microwave-convection combo???

Where you purchase those amazing roasted chickens, you can also purchase various other "sides", which you also can hardly hope to duplicate in an apartment kitchen.

Thanks for those quick replies! Kerouac would you mind giving me the name of the store with the 4euro chickens? Besides the price what else will tell me it's difference? Would it be the name 'Bresse'?

I agree djkbooks about the flavour of roasted against rotisserie-style. I will definitely get some of those potatoes!

Normally they just ask "<i>ordinaire ou fermier?</i>". I'll go to rue l'Olive in the next day or two and note the price on every rotisserie.

Make sure you also buy those fabulous little potatoes that cook in the drippings from the roasting chickens!!

Yes, the potatoes, and argue until they give you the soft fat-laden one. They will try to give you the partially roasted ones on the side that can still be crunchy.

Take your cholesterol medication!

cholesterol medication = red wine

Hi tod,

>....buy a decent free-ranging chicken off someones farm - then go and roast it at the apartment.<

I take it that you are a professional cook?

If not, why go to extra effort and expense to produce an inferior product?

Actually, the rotisserie in my countertop oven makes a damned fine chicken, but it is so easy to buy one. Sometimes, I do want to vary the seasoning or even put some sort of stuffing inside, so it can be quite enjoyable to cook it yourself, too.

I really appreciate your input here Kerouac. Any information will be very welcome.

Ira - No, not a professional cook but a damn good one! Ha Ha!
My interest in this little subject of chickens was aroused yesterday when I began reading a new book - "The Sweet Life in Paris" by the renowned chef David Lebovitz.
On page 17 he described the Parisian (maybe a little old lady - maybe a fussy Catherine Deneuve), at the volailler:

"Is that poularde in the case going to make a more flavorful bouillon than the poulet fermier in the window? Could that chicken on the left be exactly the same size as the one next to it? Is it REALLY the same price? Can you weigh them both and check just to be sure? Do you have others in the back?"
Negotiations, gesticulations and debate are far more important that the final result, which is getting the goods and getting out of there.
And when it's time to pay, for some reason to the French it always seems like total surprise, as if the customer is saying "After all that, you expect me to pay too?"

I LOVE it! Hence my enquirey as to the quality/origin of those French chickens. I want to be fussy like Maman!
Not really, it just got me thinking about those chickens going round and round, some cooked, some raw stuck on top of the cooked ones, all dripping onto the potatoes.......

Oh I forgot.....On the way home today I nipped into the supermarche to grab a sour dough baguette and a bottle of red wine. The wine washes down the daily cholesterol tablet.

my husband still talks about the chicken we got in Rue Mouffetard market, with the potatos... AWESOME!!!

Thanks for the memories

It's getting near lunch time and my drippings (aka drool) are on the keyboard

I've never rented (soon) but have walked by the street markets...what a pleasant fragrance.

Mmm...this thread reminds me of the great roasted chickens we got in Provence. Oh, and the potatoes! I think I should take my mom to Paris for her birthday next week, just to try the ones in Paris.

Thanks for the memory, and tell us how you like the chickens you tried!

mcnyc - will definitely be reporting back on the chicken because as we are in an apartment for a week we want to try loads of French produce. Not necessarily cook full blown gourmet dinners but just have the experience of grilling a nice fresh fish and MOST of ALL, getting my hands on those little goats cheeses that souffle` under the grill - Then to trickle honey all over the bubbling little critter!
I'm still making notes on what cheeses to buy......

4 and 7 euros? That's quite a bargain! The last timme I picked up a rotisserie chicken in Le Bugue it was 19 euros - and I had to chop the head off!

With vacation apartments, you often have to improvise in the kitchen. I bought some spectacular artichokes at the market one day, but there was no pot in the kitchen large enough, and no steamer basket, etc. Went online and learned how to steam them in the microwave. Amazing!

Anyone with access to a Carrefour or Auchan hypermarket can generally get a pretty good one for between 5 and 6€.

Tod, those little goat cheeses for grilling are wonderful. I go into a phase where I just keep buying them in the supermarket and eating salads and whatever with grilled goat cheese on top for about a week. And then I have had my fill and forget about them. But now that you have reminded me of them.....