Why does this unappetising chicken get a food post you might be wondering? Even more so when I tell you that beyond a tiny taste, we didn’t even eat it! Well wonder no more, it gets a post because of its preparation. This gross looking chicken was killed, plucked and had its organs removed by me. So a big warning here, there’s a vivid description of this situation below.
Over lunch on my second day in Switzerland Eva told me she would like me to look at the chickens to find the biggest one, catch it and kill it. I laughed a bit but she apparently wasn’t joking. She told me I could use a net to catch it, and an axe to kill it. I found a net and an axe, and a block of wood to use as an execution block. I managed to catch a big chicken after only a few attempts, surprisingly quickly actually. I dragged it in the net to the block and the axe and composed myself. I held the chicken in the net and pulled the net over its little head. I now realised it would be possible to keep the chicken in the net whilst I did this, which was favourable to me (I didn’t want to touch the chicken) and the chicken (no chance of it escaping and having to undergo more trauma in being re-caught). I placed the chicken on the block with just its head out. I picked up the axe in my left hand and again took a second to compose myself. I apologised to the chicken and worked myself up to do this. I brought the axe down on its neck and it started to squirm a lot. After several more blows and one squishing movement the head was removed, but the body still squirmed for quite a while. Once it had stopped I took another moment to take in what I’d done. I went to report my ‘success’ to Eva, happy that it was over. But of course it was not, as Eva informed me I’d need to pluck it. She gave me an apron to wear and showed me how to sit, on an upturned bucket with the dead bird on my legs. As I plucked it I considered that a few months ago I was in law school in London, drinking overpriced coffees on my breaks and enjoying city life. I do love extreme contrasts… I removed the wings with a knife and Eva showed me how to cut the body and pull the organs out, carefully setting to one side the liver and stomach (she said we must save these to eat too, and I though “must we????” but I did as I was told). Once this was done I washed it in water and set it in the cellar to rest for a day. The following day Eva butchered it and cooked it, but she was very unhappy that the actual meat was black. She said she was surprised at herself, but she didn’t think she could eat it, it just didn’t look right! I had mixed emotions, on one hand I really didn’t want to eat it either, it looked gross and killing it was gross and I’d rather just forget the whole thing. But on the other hand, this was the first animal I’d ever killed, it felt almost disrespectful to not eat it. What swung it for me was that I realised if we didn’t eat it, it would mean I wouldn’t have to kill anymore! So I had a little nimble just to try it (it just tasted like chicken) and we gave it to the dog.
Sadly, my assumption that I’d not have to kill anymore was very wrong.
A few days later Eva said she wanted me to kill two more chickens, the biggest ones as they were likely cocks and she didn’t want them. I really didn’t want to do this. At first I considered putting it off for a few days, but decided it would be best to not dwell on it too much. So that afternoon I did it. It was difficult to see which were the biggest two, besides some that were definitely smaller, they all looked a similar size to me! But eventually I caught and killed two (probably the wrong two, at this point I was just blindly choosing chickens to execute like a crazy dictator). I used the same technique as last time, but with the axe in my right hand this time (thanks for the tip Sam). The last chicken only took three blows to decapitate, so there’s an improvement at least. As these were being fed straight to the dog, I didn’t have to pluck them but instead skin them. I wouldn’t have been able to predict that I’d be youtubing ‘how to skin a chicken’ whilst in Switzerland but here we are. The video was very helpful and I skinned both, removing the good meat for Kiona to eat. I put the rest of the carcasses into a paper bag with the other bits and bobs. I threw this off the side of the hill, into the deep valley, for the foxes to eat. I took the bones from the legs of the chicken and ground them up, to give to the alive chickens. Seemed a bit cannibalistic to me but Eva said that’s what I was to do. I did all of this in a trance to be honest, tried to block it all out. Once all of this was done it was time for dinner, and then I read my book in the sun and tried to forget the whole ordeal.
The next morning Eva said there were still a lot of big looking chickens! This time I stopped her and said no more Eva, I cannot kill anymore chickens. She didn’t ask me again. She did however ask me to catch and kill a carp from the pond (???), but I was really done with murdering animals at this point so I laughed her off and took no steps to do this.