THE FARMER COOKS A CHICKEN.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19198, 14 June 1924, Page 11

THE FARMER COOKS A CHICKEN.

One of these days (says H. C. L. John*) I am going to write a cookery book. And the very first chapter of it will be devoted to spring chicken, as it is cooked by an old Dartmoor farmer of my acquaintance. This old fellow picks his bird about a month beforeliand, and feeds it upon the fat o fthe land. Then on the day] before he needs it he kills it, and lays it upon a dish in the old-world kitchen dose to hand. On tfyo following morning he builds ap a huge blazing fire on the hearth—& fire of peat and birchwood, with a back-log 6in thick. By 11 o’clock he has a furnace red and roaring, and the very stones of the fireplace a,re aglow. Before this fire he next suspends his chicken, hanging it by a long cord and a thin wire bridle from a nail driven in for the purpose below the broad stone mantel. On the floor he lays a dish to catch the gravy. Then he begins to turn the bird, slowly at first, in order that the heat may sear the skin thoroughly, and then more rapidly. From time to time he bastes it with the gra'ry that has accumulated in the dish. Gradually the skin browns, then blackens. Delicious little bubbles and jeta of steamy vapour appear on the surface. And the smell. Um-m-m I As the cooking advances the farmer produces a long, sharp sliver of wood, like a skewer. From time to time he presses this tentatively against the juicy breast of the bird. After a while it enters easily, and a clear, white fluid flows from the wound. Calling loudly to his good wife, the farmer immediately whips the chicken off the wire. With nervous haste ho then lays it upon an old rose-trellised dish, and proceeds deftly to dismember it. As each portion is ready his good lady adds to it oread sauce, gravy, and potatoes possessing that true earthy tang which comes from being buried for many months beneath a big mound of soil. Can you beat such a meal? You cannot 1