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A plucked capon with its head, feet and tail feathers still attached.

A capon is a castrated cockerel (rooster).

Caponisation produces a bird prized for its tenderness, and takes the stringiness out of a cockerel's meat.

The Romans are credited with inventing the capon. The Lex Faunia of 162 BCE forbade fattening hens as a way of conserving grain. In order to get around this the Romans castrated roosters, which resulted in a doubling of size.^[1]

European Gastronomic texts of the past dealt largely with capons, as the ordinary chicken of the farmyard was regarded as peasant fare, "popular malice crediting monks with a weakness for capons."^[2]

Sears Roebuck provides instructions for homesteaders prepared to do the surgery themselves: [1]

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