African Vanielje on Nov 07 2007 at 2:42 pm | Filed under: Uncategorized
A friend of mine was on a shoot in Norfolk last weekend and as we were meeting for lunch on Sunday (and being perennially fantastically generous) he asked me if I would like any game from the shoot. 5 years ago the answer would have been a polite ‘No thanks!’ but I seem to have had a paradigm shift in not only taste buds, but food sensibilities in the past few years.
Consequently his gift of a goose and a pheasant was greeted with delight, by myself at least. My daughter who is very empathetic, wasn’t thrilled to see them in feather, and my husband is happy to eat them but would definitely not want to be involved in the palaver of hanging and dressing them. Given the choice he would settle for a bowl of muesli.
I remember the first time I ever dressed a game bird. It was about five years ago and I was cooking for a party staying in a grand country house for a few weeks. They had a shoot one day and came home bearing birds that they wanted to eat for dinner. Now as far as I’m concerned, if you’re going to shoot something you should at the very least do it the courtesy of eating it. I cannot justify the senseless waste otherwise.
The birds were handed over to me and I sat on the back step of the kitchen (it’s a messy business best undertaken outside) which had no doubt seen countless similar scenes in it’s 3 or 4 centuries of life, with tears pouring down my face, sobbing: ‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry!’ as I plucked. I think the tears were as much for the gamey smell as for the plight of another creature.
My stomach is stronger than it used to be, and I have used the intervening years to come to a decision within myself. I eat meat, therefore I should be intimately aware of how it comes to the table, and so should my daughter. I have never made her eat any meat she doesn’t want to, but neither have I ever lied to her about what she is eating. We regularly eat rabbit, pheasant, and venison, and on a recent visit to The Fat Duck (courtesy of the same fantastically generous friend) my daughter’s favourite dish was the pigeon. And to be quite honest, I would rather she ate a pigeon from the woods, than a chicken breast from a battery reared bird. There is no shame in living off the land around you and much shame in the way we allow intensively farmed animals to live.
In the past few years I have been lucky enough to assist my butcher with several local free range lamb and pig carcasses, learning a huge amount in the process and solidifying my belief that if I am going to eat an animal, the only honourable way to do it is to ensure that that animal has had a good life, and to make sure that I don’t waste any part of it. Whether I am in a commercial kitchen or at home, nothing gets wasted. Stocks, jellies, terrines and pates are all made, and even the pigs ears were slow cooked off in the aga and given to the dogs for chews. Dakota has seen this whole process and found it quite fascinating. It is important that she can make her own choices but I choose to teach her not to have preconceptions and to try not to be hypocritical about her choices.
All this being said, I have done the hanging and dressing enough times myself to know that my enthusiasm will have waned somewhat by the time it comes to the eating. Not because it puts me off, but it is a long and messy process. Having done it myself, I no longer feel the urge to do it all the time, so I have handed the birds over to Helen, of Depot Cottage where I get my eggs. Her son supplies local game birds and often hangs and dresses for the locals. I am to collect them both, after a weeks’ hanging, on Friday, by which time I hope to have made a decision on how to cook them. One thing I know already though, whatever I choose to do, no part will be wasted, and we will give thanks for the bounty we have been given.
I’m full of admiration and wish I’d the resolution to make that same leap into self-sufficiency. We’ve got geese and at one stage had chickens but we’re all either too squeamish or soft hearted to serve them up for dinner. City folk masquerading in the country is what we are really.
Though my kids do know where their meat comes from. Youngest at one stage insisted on progressing through the supermarket meat section, proclaiming in a loud voice – ’so that’s a dead sheep and that’s a dead cow’ …etc
Absolutely agree! We have gotten too far from the reality of life and death, prefering to buy our meat in sealed packets…and imagining that it is plucked, hermetically sealed, from a meat tree in some far off land.
Very good points and I agree.I like your appraoch to things.
I definitely agree with you! At least.. in theory. I haven’t had an opportunity to handle any game or otherwise non-supermarket meat, and I’m not completely confident on how I would react. But I *hope* I feel the same way you do.
I actually considered cooking a goose for this weekend, it’s a traditional goose-feast here but I’ve never tried it. It’d have to come from the store though, and probably frozen. Or maybe I’ll just make something else… 
by the way,
about hte mincemeat thing…
try your mincemeat (with chipotle) rolled into palmiers, baked, and dusted with confectioners sugar before serving.
Kit, I’m not sure how I would feel about birds that were pets, and I’m certainly not as ‘tough’ as real country folk, but I am now quite fine with seeing the lamb that is destined for our table gambolling in the front park, or knowing that a friend is at present rearing a free range pig for me. My nephew at the age of four did the same thing in the supermarket where you could see whole carcasses hanging up in the butchers section. Only he was hysterical and kept yelling at my mom to call our vet to fix them. He is now thirteen and although we have never really made a big thing about it he is by choice not a great meat eater. Each to their own.
Marye, you are so right and I think there is nothing more wasteful than only eating chicken breasts or only using a particular cut of meat. By all means take the breast off for a stir fry or salad, but you can still use the rest of the chicken for a casserole and the bones for stock. It is always cheaper to buy a whole bird as well, so that you can afford a free range one.
The palmiers sound gorgeous.
Glamah, the older I get the more concerned I become with what my actions teach my daughter. It makes you reevaluate
Anne, I am aware that many people don’t have access to the food that I do in the country. I don’t think that buying from your local butcher or a supermarket is hypocritical, I just think it’s a good thing to be aware of issues. It’s not for me to judge people, I just think that whatever decision you make, as long as you are informed of the issues the decisoin is up to you. Hope you manage to find some goose for your celebration this week. The problem with goose is it is so large you need plenty of guests to finish it off. Good luck.
I grew up in a family of hunters, and watched my father skin and clean many deer, rabbits, squirrels, fish, etc, and we still get some fresh venison each year from both my father and my father-in-law. I hope that growing up with fresh game on our table, as well as helping my great grandmother collect the eggs and milk the cows has given me a bit of a closer-to-the-land ethic.
I am not surprised, but I have the exact same attitude and philosophy that you do about meat (including fish and poultry). I will not back down from the ugly dissecting, cleaning, cutting, etc. If I am to eat it, I wish to honor it, too, and be honest with myeslf. I would do the same with a daugther or son if I had one. I also agree about the farm-raised condition of our animals! And like you, sometimes by the time I get to the table, the appetite disappers, but it’s okay.
Great post.
Andrea, I grew up in a restaurant kitchen so learned early to clean and trim meat and fish. I distinctly remember the first time I had to clean an entire box of prawns (large ones like langoustines). I remember thinking how perfectly beautiful they were and I felt the same thing looking at the goose. The food still came in boxes or crates though (or sometimes straight off the boats) but since living in the English countryside I have learned to deal with it literally from wood to plate (although I still have a lot to learn).
Jeni, you’re right and I feel really strongly about things like battery hens. I always buy organic if I can (or at least free range and local). This means that sometimes we eat more simply, particularly towards the end of the month, but everythings you do gets paid forward, so I like to do what I can when I can.
Really good post – I completely agree with your line of thinking and am impressed you’ve had the opportunity to get hands-on with some of the animals you eat. I hope you have a good feast out of your birds.
Thanks Anne-Marie. The pheasant made a fantastic casserole and we had roast goose today. Not quite turkey, but then it’s not quite thanksgiving here in the UK