Life in the countryside is so, well, so rural.
I've had a pheasant hanging in the shed for a week or so now. It was given to me by the farmer up the lane. It was dead but not vacuum packed and standing on a blue polystyrene tray like every other pheasant I've ever cooked when he very kindly gave it to me But then this is the countryside, and how hard can preparing a pheasant be to a man who gutted freshly caught mackerel last summer?
Today was the day. I took the pheasant down from the shed, where I'd been hanging it from the neck as instructed, and placed it on the preparation table. I knew that first I had to pluck it before chopping off the head, removing the gullet, opening it at the rear, putting my hand deep inside and pulling out everything that was soft and gooey. No problem. I began to pluck thinking of the succulent, bacon wrapped, roast bird that I was going to cook for dinner; perhaps I'd serve it with parsnip chips.
At first it went okay, the feathers were coming out easily enough, but suddenly it all went horribly wrong. As I tried to pull out the gloriously coloured tail feathers the bird ripped in half spilling its guts and gore everywhere.
It smelled and I gagged, I gagged a lot, actually I threw up and very nearly passed out. I had to sit quietly for twenty minutes trying to forget all about it.
Maybe I pulled too hard.
Anyway, I gave it a decent burial this morning and will be visiting the local butcher later for a replacement so that I can say with some degree of honesty that the pheasant was delicious when the farmer asks me.
What worries me most though is that we keep some chickens up at the farm and my daughter hatches birds from eggs in an incubator. The last batch contained two males who will be ready too eat at Easter...oh well.
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