抄録
Nagoya-Cochin (Nagoya Breed) is a famous meat breed. It is generally recognized that the chicken meat of Nagoya-Cochin has a better taste and hardness to chew compared with the chicken meat of broiler. The purpose of this study is to elucidate the food histological characteristics of the chicken meat.
Skeletal muscles (m. semimembranosus) of Nagoya-Cochin and broiler were observed under a light microscope with hematoxylin-eosin staining and reticular-silver-impregnation. The cross section of a fiber of chicken skeletal muscular tissue was a polygonal. The polygonal of broiler muscle has more rounded and dull angles than that of Nagoya-Cochin muscle. Reticular fibers located in the endomysium of a Nagoya-Cochin muscle were larger in diameter and more in number than those of a broiler. A reticular fiber of broiler muscle was thin and straight, while that of Nagoya-Chochin was coarse and radial.
These results suggest that the hardness of dark meat in chicken is dependent on the size, number and structure of reticular fiber in connective tissue. A more moderate hardness to chew of Nagoya-Chochin meat as compared with that of broiler can be explained through the observation on histological structure.
