Pollo vs Gallina (and others)
I'm creating some flashcards of animals, and wanted to do one of a chicken / hen.
But what is the correct word? I had assumed "pollo" - but that's a masculine word, so I looked a bit further.
I also found "gallina".
So which is correct? Does "pollo" just refer to the meat?
If I was on a farm and I saw a live hen, would I refer to her as "una gallina" or "un pollo"?
8 Answers
On the farm.......El gallo & La gallina
On the table......El pollo
This may seem strange to hear, but...
Gallina can also refer to the food on the table. People here in Colombia are very particular about only using a gallina (hen) to make a soup. I once became very frustrated with a friend who kept telling me the pollo (chickent) in the market was not gallina (hen).
In all my life I had never gone to the market to find a hen, I always went and bought chicken without any thought at all to whether it was male or female.
Anyway...
I'm glad for this question, because it touches on one of the really bewildering and annoying things for me, having grown in a country where we make the same distinction that H1deaway points out.
In most English-speaking countries where I have been, people just eat chicken. You go to the supermarket and buy chicken. That's what you cook, that's what you eat.
There is a faint sort of notion that at the farm there are creatures like Roosters or Cocks or Cockerels, Hens, Chickens and Chicks. But somehow, by the time you get to the supermarket, they all mysteriously disappear, and only the chickens remain. What happened to everything else? Did it all turn into that infamous "poultry byproducts" that are an essential ingredient of dog and cat food?
Like H1deaway, I grew up in a place where you can at least each chicken or hen, and we know that the two meats are very different. Chicken tastes like frog legs. 
(just being perverse here, don't mind my humor)
But hen - hen has a tougher, redder meat, and has a much stronger taste. That's why we only use hen for certain soups of stews. Chicken is just too bland for it!
As far as I know, I have never - or very rarely - eaten rooster. But in some South American countries, it is also common to prepare certain dishes with rooster, and nothing else will do. I understand that it is the tougher, stronger-flavored meat of all three.
As for chicks - I've only had them in some Laotian traditional meals that are a bit "fringe" for most Western people.
In any event, it is very frustrating going to a US supermarket, trying to find hen, not chicken. Even worse when the supermarket staff just look at you like you're mad, and then they just say: "Waddayamean "hen"? There's chicken! "
sigh
At least in Puerto Rico I can find hen (smallish ones) in some of the specialty markets. They haven't completely forgotten their culinary culture, here yet...
Various things I found about this topic on dif. websites:
I'm not completely sure about this, but the female gallina not a layer provides most of the meat in our grocery stores. A layer (ponedora) is also eaten after stopping laying--that meat is known to be tough and flavorful. A pollo is a male, preferred by most for traditional cooking because of its fuller flavor. On the other hand, if you're at the supermarket (here in Colombia) and want the the meat from a gallina produced for meat, you ask for carne de pollo.
It's the type of bird, classification by the age of bird. Gallina is an older bird, yes, used mostly for stock and broth preparation, not for cooking its meat, not even in a stew. Pollo is a younger bird.
In some Latin American countries the difference between pollo and gallina meat is much more marked, as is the case in Peru with aji de gallina and pollo chifa. Pollo meaning a younger, whiter meat, and gallina a yellower, fattier, and older meat.
But in Mexico gallina only means the live animal and pollo de dead one =) or cooked one.
Chiming in... in "Mexican" it mostly refers to the age of the bird:
Pollito : Fryer Pollo: Roaster Gallina : Soup Hen Gallo : Rarely Good Eats
Gallinita : Cornish Game Hen Codorniz: Quail
With regards to pollo vs polla... the masculine form is used most often even when its referring to a female. The real difference comes with hen... where gender is important as roosters are rarely tasty.
One last thing... on the cultural front there is a popular saying that goes... Gallina vieja hace buen caldo or Old hen makes for good stew.... and yes it is double entendre.
These are some of our hens Gallinas, they lay eggs so they're hens.
My understanding is that el gallo is the word for a live rooster and el pollo is the word for the meat of a chicken.
Gallo - rooster
Pollito - chick
Gallina is the correct word, pollo is chicken, gallina is hen.
