The Coucou de Rennes is the city's own barred grey-and-white chicken breed, slow-grown and firm-fleshed, saved from extinction in the 1980s and now a fixture on Rennes menus.

The breed was standardised around Rennes in the nineteenth century and was the dominant table bird of Ille-et-Vilaine before industrial poultry displaced it. By the late 1980s the population had collapsed to a handful of birds, and a conservation programme run through the Écomusée du Pays de Rennes rebuilt it from that remnant. Coucou birds take five to six months to reach table weight against six weeks for a commercial broiler, which gives the meat a denser grain and a much stronger flavour, and makes it expensive. It now appears on Rennes bistro menus as a marker of local sourcing, usually roasted whole, grilled over wood or braised long enough to soften the working muscle.

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