Food - Drink
What Makes Capon Different From Your Standard Chicken?
By ALEX SCHAUER
Chickens can be referred to using a variety of terms, from hen and rooster to pullet and capon. You may never have heard of a capon before, so if you see capon chicken on sale at a gourmet market, you'll want to know what makes this special, high-quality meat different from that of a standard hen.
A capon is a rooster that is castrated before it matures, and which is done because a lack of testosterone causes more fat to form on the chicken's muscles. A capon will grow larger than a hen, but not as large as a rooster, and the chickens are fed a richer diet of milk and porridge, which helps to develop flavorful meat.
Capons were once considered a luxury for the rich, and today, they still cost more than hens because they are expensive to feed and not mass-produced, so you won't see them sold at a supermarket. Allowing male chickens to grow to adulthood isn't common, so capon may be a more humane use for them.