NOT all free-range chickens are created equal. Pamora Farms has been raising free-range chickens for 18 years now, and with the advent of these terms being more mainstream, the people behind Pamora want the public to know that.
I have always been familiar with the Pamora brand because they used to be the only locally available free-range chicken found in specialty shops, (apart from native chickens, I guess), but I knew little about its origins until meeting Arestina “Tina” Morados-Papillon, who founded the brand and currently serves as its general manager. “Pamora” is actually a portmanteau of her and her husband Gerard’s surnames. In collaboration with Chef Jonas Ng of James & Daughters (By Le Jardin), they put out a Pamora menu for chefs and some members of the press to try.
The farm is at KM396 Baranggay Garreta, Pidigan, Abra, an hour away from Vigan, Ilocos Sur. Photos from the slideshow show the bright blue chicken houses sitting on large swathes of grass. The greenery is clearly visible, as well as the chickens dotting it. The ranging area is around 1 square meter per bird, which is based on France’s “Label Rouge” system of identifying free-range chickens. Label Rouge has a more stringent standard than the local requirements for a brand to meet the free-range label. The feed should be purely plant based and not contain animal protein or fishmeal.
The chickens must also all go out into the field during the day (unless the weather is bad). It is not enough, Tina says, to just have an access door for the chickens, which one supposes is how more commercial entities operate. Pamora chickens are also grown for a minimum of 81 days, which is an eternity in commercial chicken farming where the fowl is grown for only 26-35 days. This is possible because the chicken are given growth hormones to hasten their development, as well as administered antibiotics. “They cannot survive without antibiotics because all their discharge is inside the [chicken] house…and there’s ammonia and nitrogen,” says Tina. The period in which the chickens are raised means they also don’t have a withdrawal period (from the antibiotics).
It is thought that antibiotic resistance has increased because the food we eat contains antibiotics, apart, of course, from the main reason where people just don’t take them properly. “Pamora chickens are grown naturally. It’s not forced. They are happy chickens,” says Tina.
To help prevent disease, Pamora chickens graze on a herbal diet of lemongrass, chili and oregano, and ginger. Chili is rich in vitamin C, acts as a natural antibiotic, and has antibacterial properties. As with humans, oregano is good for respiratory problems. The kakawate plant (madre de cacao) is a natural pesticide. It’s been used as an ingredient active in dog shampoos to prevent mange. The chickens are even given lemongrass juice everyday because lemongrass is rich in antioxidants, vitamins and minerals. Basically these chickens are like the low-key equivalent of those Kobe beef cows and are healthier than you.
Pamora also acquired their own dressing plant, where they use equipment they imported from France. The plant is only used for free-range chickens, and they practice what is called air dry-chilling. “Our chickens have more meat because there’s no water. In the country, I believe we are the only ones doing it,“ says Tina. She describes the process: “It’s from the European standard where you chill the chicken after dressing to put down temperature up to 4 degrees Celsius. It’s a cold chamber where they chill without water.” Commercial practices engage in submerged-chilling, where the chickens are submerged in ice water containing 1 percent chlorine. “Even if you’re organic, if you put it under that system, it’s already altered,” says Tina. “The meat is like a sponge, so it absorbs water. There’s about 15 [percent] to 20 percent water in it [chicken]. It’s also why we say Pamora chicken is ‘more’ chicken.”
Of course, this all comes at a premium because of all the work that goes into raising an organic chicken. Pamora whole dressed chickens cost from P300 to P432, depending on their size, which is twice the price of commercially farmed chickens in the market. If you think about it, free range was how people used to eat meat (yes, even chicken) before the advent of commercial farming, and people didn’t eat as much of it. We are familiar with our native chickens, which is often the go-to variety when we want a broth that is rich and flavorful, but there is little meat and it is often tough, so Pamora uses a French SASSO poultry breed. Free-range chickens have more meat because the birds have less fat. A Pamora free-range chicken only has 8-percent fat compared to commercial birds that have a 20 percent-to-30 percent fat content. According to Tina, the Pamora nutrition label where all this is stated is independently verified by the Food and Nutrition Research Institute and not something they just got off the Internet.
Pamora offers whole dressed chicken, as well as the parts, eggs and pate. The recipes for the various pates are culled from her husband’s great grandmother’s recipe, which makes it quite authentic and homespun French. It has a sweet undercurrent of what could be Bourbon, which is traditional. They also offer capons, but those take more time because the chickens are grown for five to six months. “I do the castrating,” says Tina with a laugh, who even went to France to study the process.
As for the taste of the chicken, it is true what they say that it is firm and more flavorful. It does taste more “chicken-y.” And we ate all manner of Pamora’s chicken products: poached egg with asparagus truffle oil and sea salt, chicken sliders, chicken oyster satay, chicken wing confit, chicken lollipop, James & Daughters Iberian chicken, classic crème brûlée and Tahitian vanilla bean ice cream.
Even if Pamora chickens are out of reach for the average consumer for everyday meals, it’s something that can be indulged in once a while. Maybe then the phrase “tastes like chicken” won’t be the de facto term to mean humdrum and basic, but something celebratory.