American Bresse

Description

Here at Crosshatch, we wouldn’t have a rainbow egg basket if we didn’t first have a commitment to heritage dual purpose breeds. Beyond the nutritional value of the wonderful edible egg, we’ve harvested and tabled quite a number of different dual purpose breeds at various ages and stages and I will say for us that nothing compares to the American Bresse, a breed recently imported from France that is rumored to be the best tasting chicken in the world.

What makes American Bresse special?

In France, the Poulet de Bresse has “appellation d’origine contrôlée” status, and has been registered with a “Protected Designation of Origin” under EU and UK law. Yes, the French take their heritage food and farming seriously, as should we here in the US! In France, the birds may be produced only from white chickens of the Bresse Gauloise breed raised within a legally-defined area of the historic region and former province of Bresse, in eastern France. A few imports of the Bresse Gauloise breed have made their way into the United States, and here we call all birds derived from those imports American Bresse to respect the French customs.

In France, the Poulet de Bresse is sold with its head and legs still attached (as proof) for three figures per bird, where the meat can ‘marble’ when finished traditionally on corn and raw whole milk after a priod of low protein feed that forces high protein grazing. While we haven’t seen the meat marble per se at the homestead even with some corn and raw milk as finishing, the breed is definitely able to develop a good amount of yellow fat that is a chef’s dream. More importantly, some feel it may be the true answer to sustainable heritage meat options— the Bresse matures quickly, lays plentiful pink to tan eggs around the same time it reaches harvest at 17-19 weeks, and tables beautifully with a good meat to bone ratio. They are vital and energetic, with excellent foraging instincts and predator awareness and with excellent fertility rates— we tend to hatch nearly 100% of what we put in the incubator on higher ratios of female to male than we keep in other breed pens. This mean you can allow them to reproduce naturally, where your culls are your food and your breeding pens can continue producing for years to come of of your one pen.

It should be said that American Bresse are a heritage breed and are not comparable to the industrial Cornish Cross. You will not see the Cornish Cross growth rates or breast development, but you will behold genetic integrity in strong and healthy birds with flavorful meat.  An emerging club and breed standard for the American Bresse can be found here: https://www.ambresse.com/american-bresse-breed-club.html

Are they different than other birds we’ve tried?

We’ve gotten accustomed to the fact that our heritage birds and olive egger crosses just don’t table like the genetically-monstrous Cornish Cross available at the grocery store. Industrial poultry has become increasingly ‘woody’ or stringy in the breast tissue, and from an ethical point of view we wish to eat pasture-raised, heritage (traditionally bred) meat only. Yet most of my family has a hard time with the average dual purpose cockerel cull that makes it into our freezer. They are phenomenal soup birds but too dark and too ‘red’ to be within the comfort zone for my larger family as a roaster. We’ve gotten a lot smarter about harvest windows and cooking low and slow over the years, but we still wanted to find a bird that would give us the juicy white breast meat and full flavor that we remember in store bought poultry from the days of yore. We weren’t sure Bresse could live up to our high hopes but… oh, oh, oh. They did.

How to prepare?

In the photo and video below, we rested a 17-week old male raised and harvested with love here at the redstead for five days dry in the fridge, then filled with an onion and garlic cloves and roasted at 425* for a few then dropped the temp for a long and slow 220* while going about our day’s chores, brushed with nothing but oil and sea salt. The pan sauce was thick as gravy and the breast is the single best white meat I’ve ever eaten. It’s like remembering what chicken is supposed to taste like.

Our line of Bresse came to us through North Star Farms, and we’ve now selected our breeders for four generations focused on type and conformation with the proposed/emerging standard. We see mostly slate gray legs, slightly more than majority white earlobes, and pretty great natural type with wide pin bones and a thick body that retains the bone to body ratio we want to maintain in the breed. In 2025 we saw our most lovely offspring and we’re focused on continuing this work, while focusing on egg size and shape— color can vary from very light bloomy pink to light tan with speckles.

We’re excited to share some with you in the name of sustainable back yard and homestead food production!