He Does Chicken Right

Chicken.

It's probably not the subject of most great discussions in the dining halls at Harvard. For many students, the much-maligned bird is simply an alternative to a plate of foliage or grilled cheese for the third consecutive evening.

And the chicken at Harvard usually get gussied up more often than most students do.

But for the most part, there doesn't seem to be any real difference in taste between the various chicken meals, be it barbecue, fried, lemon pepper, or cordon bleu.

According to Richard C. Silver, though, there's a big difference between fresh and frozen fowl.

As the owner and manager of Maylower Poultry Company, Silver has provided Cambridge and Boston with the freshest quality poultry available for the past 35 years.

A large black and yellow sign, boldly emblazoned with the words "Live Chickens Killed Fresh Daily," invites discriminating taste buds to Silver's establishment on Cambridge Street.

Silver says customers know his chickens are the best around because they are as fresh as he can get them.

It's top quality, he says.

"Fresh chicken," says Silver, "is all I carry. It's all government inspected--I won't handle anything that's not [Grade A]."

And why slaughter the chickens every morning? Silver says many finicky fowl lovers can taste the difference.

"Some customers require chickens killed fresh daily," Silver says, "The fresher the meat the more the flavor."

Short, Unstressful Lives

Silver and his band of ten employees say they work 12 hours a day to process nearly 300 chickens.

Chickens, says Silver, are early birds and arrive at the Cambridge street building before 5:00 am.

The chickens wait, blissfully unaware that their lives, which began on a New England farm, are about to come to an abrupt end.

Employees unload them from apartment-style steel crates where as many as four layers of 28 chickens may be innocently pecking up their last supper.

The birds, explains Silver, are fed right up until the end and are generally not kept at the plant overnight in order to reduce their stress levels.

After the fowl are unloaded from the crates, they are shepharded into a small room where a single worker can dispose of "a couple hundred" birds in "a couple hours."

From here, the birds are taken to a back room where they are cut and processed for the clients.

"We cut them any way they want them," Silver says.

After being cut and processed, chicken parts are wrapped for delivery to clients.

A Bird is a Bird is a Bird

But Mayflower doesn't just do chickens, Silver says. Customers, should they desire, can order almost any type of bird or beast "fresh-killed" and ready to cook.

Silver says he prepares quail, duck, pheasant, turkey and even rabbit for discriminating patrons.

Those with less daring palates may prefer to stop by the shop and pick up a rotisserie baked chicken or some farm fresh eggs.

"You can't get eggs fresher than ours," Silver claims.

Although one might expect that Mayflower's unique service would result in higher priced products, Silver says he can almost always undersell the grocery stores because of his small scale and specialization.

And with so many years of experience, the company has had lots of practice in cutting costs and staying competitive.

"My price is competitive on all items," Silver says, adding "All that I'm handling is poultry. I don't have losses, throw-aways or pilferedge."

Silver says his father founded the company in Boston's North End in the early 1950's and then moved to Cambridge when his land was seized during the construction of the Summner tunnel.

"We've done well here in Cambridge," Silver reminices. Indeed he has built up quite a business selling to area restaurants, institutions, and markets.

One of these area institutions is the Harvard Faculty Club, which Silver says likes its chicken "fresh but not fresh-killed."

The Father of Fowl

Chicken parts which are distributed by the company without being slaughtered may hail from as far Maryland and Delaware, Silver says.

These parts arrive in boxes some of which may leave the plant for the client untouoched by any human hand.

"Some items come in boxes and go out the same way," Silver says.

It may not be glamorous, but it's a meal nonethless.

And to paraphrase the words of another purveyor of poultry, Frank Perdue, "It takes a tough man to make a fresher chicken."