The consensus around the table was that it tasted like chicken. This wasn't said with irony or despair but rather in the spirit of, "Wow, this really tastes like chicken." Or, "Omigod, it's chicken!"

"This is the best chicken I've ever eaten," offered one of the various children at dinner that evening as she reached for thirds.

Handout (ENLARGE)

Poulet Rouge Fermier du Piedmont is a North Carolina fowl of distinguished lineage - and with a feather-challenged neck.

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Yes, it was chicken.

No, not just any chicken.

Labeled Poulet Rouge Fermier du Piedmont, it is a bird raised in North Carolina but descended from top-of-the-(can't resist)-pecking-order French breeds. And it is unlike any other on the American market.

If you've ever had the pleasure of shopping at a good butcher shop in France, you may have witnessed the adoration lavished on fine chickens. The best-known French super chicken, the poulet de Bresse, will be displayed with its blue feet intact, its feathers plucked up to the still-attached head and its official seal of approval. "Label Rouge" chickens make up a larger group but are also highly prized. These specimens are also pasture-bred and derived from old, slow-maturing breeds that taste like the yardbirds of yore.

Chicken farmer Ron Joyce of Winston-Salem's Joyce Foods traveled to France to find a breed that would have the fullest flavor and adapt to a North Carolina farm. The hybrid developed for them earned the name "cou nu," or "Naked Neck," for the tube of pink skin attaching its head to its red-feathered body.

These chickens are raised to the age of 11 weeks (positively geriatric by today's standards) and don't get as big as their commercial-grade cousins. The dressed whole chickens cap out at about 3 firm pounds.

Kathleen Purvis, food editor at The Charlotte Observer and charter member of the Naked Neck fan club, visited the farm. She wrote that the chickens "get more room, so they don't have to be debeaked and they can run around, flapping their wings, pecking the ground and generally acting like chickens. They get a special diet, just soybeans, corn and vitamins. The almost-grown chickens at the front of the house can go out the door into a small fenced yard."

While these chickens are more widely available in Charlotte, here they are only at select branches of Whole Foods Market, including the Midtown location. A whole bird (the only option) costs about $9.

I cut the chickens in half and gave them a quick marinade of olive oil, lemon juice, crushed garlic and dried herbs while the grill heated. The breasts are no bigger than the legs but firmer than typical chicken breasts, so both white and dark meat wind up being ready at the same time. The skin is thin but resilient and comes off the grill as crisp as fried chicken skin. The meat is firm and not juicy like chicken in a Popeyes ad, but moist. Best of all, it has that tackiness that glues your teeth together for a split second.

Then there's the flavor. At first bite you'll realize what a fine, desirable thing it is to taste like chicken.

How to prepare half chickens for the grill: Even if home butchering scares you, this technique is easy. Using kitchen shears, cut along both sides of the backbone, wiggling it around the bones of the thigh and then snapping through the small ribs. Discard the backbone or save it for stock. Open the chicken, pressing both halves down on the cutting board so that the inside is facing up. Using your shears (or, better yet, your largest knife), cut along the breastbone, which is soft, if a little slippery. The only part that will give you a small struggle is the wishbone. Then lay the halves in a large platter and coat lightly with the marinade of your choice. Leave at room temperature while your grill heats. I like to start the chickens in a covered grill rib side down over direct heat. After 10 or 15 minutes, it should have firmed up to its final shape. Then I carefully flip the halves and finish them in a covered grill over indirect heat for another 10 or 15 minutes. If the skin remains flabby in part, I remove the lid and carefully monitor the chicken, edging it closer to the direct heat to crisp.