Chicken mummy, cont...

I guess this is week two of our chicken mummy. The book said to check the chicken and change the salt daily the first week. I checked on our chicken all week and, since the salt wasn't excessively wet, I didn't bother changing it. I just made sure the salt wasn't soaked- though it did get damp. Today we decided we should change the salt out. Honestly, I think the salt could have lasted another couple days.


Here is our chicken in the plastic bags before we changed him out. I guess this is like a 3 lb chicken.


Trevor mixing the salt/baking soda/baking powder mixture.


Trevor using his mad photopraphy skillz. :) This is the chicken after we have scraped the salt off him. We needed to scrape as much salt off as possible, refill the cavity and recoat the bird. We put him in a new set of bags. Yes, I am wearing no gloves. I washed my hands well afterwards. I would not allow the kids to touch the chicken- they put their fingers in their mouths more than I do.

A couple notes: what surprised me the most, although it really shouldn't have surprised me at all because I have fermented and cultured foods quite a few times- just never cured anything, was the lack of odor. I was scared I would open the bag and be knocked back by the scent of stinky, rotten chicken. But no. There was no odor really, at all. The chicken was not smooshy to the touch. The surface was moist because of the salt, but not really wet.

Also.. Trevor made this really cute video where he talked about the mummification process in general and pyramids, etc. He talked about robbers visiting the graves and stealing things. It was very good and totally off the top of his head. But, when I plug the camcorder into the computer, all the buttons face downward and I guess I accidentally deleted it! I was so bummed. It was really good! So you just get nasty salty raw chicken pictures. Sorry!