poultry perfection...

If you like eating chicken then you might want to try one of Cumbria's fast, or rather I should say, slow growing success stories, the Lakeland Ranger. Thanks to celebrity chefs such as Jamie Oliver and Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall we are all more aware of the conditions that some of our chickens have to put up with. This has made consumers search out free range and organic chickens in particular. It is this trend that is having a beneficial effect on Cumbria's premier organic poultry breeder, Lowther Park Farms.

The Lakeland Rangers, as Lowther like to call them, are reared in a warmed, specialist mobile arc that sits in an open field. Of course, being raised organically also means that the chickens are free range. So not only do they own their own homes in the Lake District but they have the land to go with it too. This type of chicken is a slow growing breed that lives in a small flock on organic land. This is in contrast to chickens that are housed indoors for their whole life and who live in very large flocks.

The chickens have free access to organic feed which can be twice as expensive as conventional feed. In addition, as they grow slowly, they are kept and fed for longer so naturally you will pay more for them. However per kilo, organic chickens are no more expensive than your average pork chop. But never mind the price, what about the taste? According to Clarissa Dickson Wright, the chickens have a "marvellous taste and flavour" and Nigel Cokwell, who buys meat for Booths, a great regional supermarket, thinks that the "Lowther chicken should be a national treasure".

You can buy the chicken in the Booths stores in Kendal, Keswick, Kirkby Lonsdale, Ulverston and Windermere. It is also available in cooked form at the recently refurbished and opened George and Dragon, run by the Lowther family. You can find a full list of the establishments that have Lowther's organic produce by clicking here (by the way, it's not just chickens that have the good life at Lowther, but cows and sheep too).

Content and photography supplied by www.artisan-food.com, funded by Distinctly Cumbrian.