That is so chicken: a cooking contest

Remember the good old days of Yardbird Socials, when once a year the green Kentucky hills would sweeten with the smoky scent of roasted poultry? Remember when families would gather together under white parasols and straw boaters to watch with bated breath as the town tasters chose that year’s prizewinning chicken entree? No?

Well, neither do we, but the National Yardbird Assn. is about to tell us. Re-instituted last year in Silver Lake’s bohemian enclave, the association -- whose stated mission is “bringing people together through roasted chicken” -- is doing its best to resurrect a long-forgotten tradition with the 2002 Winternational Yardbird Social. Set for Saturday, anyone with a skillet-cooked chicken and a $10 prepaid entry fee can put their culinary skills to the test. The prize, the Golden Wishbone, resides with the winner until the next competition.

According to Phil Goldwhite, a founding member and the head of the association’s San Gabriel chapter, the original yardbird social was born “in the decimated South of the post-Civil War period.” Goldwhite explains that in a country weary of “the wholesale destruction of war, people turned from fighting each other to cooking chickens in order to solve differences and reconstruct their destroyed communities.” The association points to a 1878 mention by Mark Twain in the Vicksburg Herald Express that spoke to the tradition: “The coveted golden wishbone is up for grabs again.”

“Like break dancing is to gang combat,” adds founding member Ivan Uranga, “the yardbird social offered an alternative to violence in the form of chicken-cooking competitions.” According to founding member Jon Alain Guzik, yardbirding as a tradition eventually died out during the Great Depression “because there was no chicken,” he says. “Then, with FDR’s New Deal, there was suddenly a ‘chicken in every pot.’ ”

Yardbird members claim to have discovered the association’s original 19th century archives at a garage sale in Pacoima and to have been seduced by the idea of poultry roasting as a means of soothing ill will and creating strong community bonds. Inspired to form a modern-day equivalent, (which currently boasts chapters in Los Feliz, Echo Park, Venice, Eagle Rock, Hollywood, Topanga and Burbank) the association threw its first yardbird social last year. While there is no documentation to substantiate the association’s claims concerning the purported Yardbird tradition, in the end the question of whether the social is legitimate historical tribute or merely edible art prank matters little. What matter is good friends, good times and good eats.

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2002 Winternational Yardbird Social

When: Saturday, 1-4 p.m.

Where: The Den of Antiquity,

3936 W. Sunset Blvd., Silver Lake

Cost: Entry fee is $10

(includes a T-shirt) or $5

(no T-shirt). All entries must be reserved by end of today.

Info: (323) 662-4332.