SC - A Parable, now peacock

[David & Sue Carter]

> The other Lord Steffan said:
> > The peacock (actually 7 to 9 lb. turkey breasts, the local peacock farm
> > didn't have any available at the moment.  Which is too bad, because,
> > peacock is very good.)
>
> Have you actually had peacock? There are period referances to it being a
> tough bird and to substitute another bird covering that bird in the
> peacock's skin and feathers.
>
> Steffan, I'd love to hear more comments about your experiences with
> cooking peacocks.
>

I'd like to compare notes with Steffan, too.

We also cooked peacock some years ago, for a cooking competition at
Midwinter of AS 23.  We acquired ours from an old Italian couple who raised
them in a huge aviary and ate them all the time.  On their advice, we bought
a young male, that is before his first flush of coloured tail, and kept him
for 3-4 months in with the chickens.  We were advised to feed him on
standard chicken pellets, until two weeks before we wanted to kill him, them
feed him lots of greens, especially cabbage.  We were told this improves the
meat and cleans out the gut.
The bird got his nice new coloured feathers just in time for the event. We
killed and pulled the bird, then removed the skin+feathers.  These we salted
for reconstruction at presentation.  (I can give info on how we did that,
too if anyone is interested) We froze the meat until just before the event,
then we roasted it as per turkey, in a covered dish with lots of basting to
keep the moisture up.  It was important not to let the meat get too dry.
Those who ate it (and Mistress Kiriel may have been one of them) said it was
like turkey: a strong flavour and rather firm. No one complained it was
tough or unpleasant as I have so often heard people assert.
For hygiene sake we made a salt pastry dough cover for the bird that the
skin+feathers were mounted on.

We were going to try the roast the peacock with its feathers pulled up over
its head method, but the competition was 1400km from home and the people
Osgot was staying with wouldn't have appreciated dead bird and a spit in the
garden.

After its 2800km round trip, it made a re-appearance at a feast the
following weekend.  This time there was nothing under the shell and we
displayed it with its tail in full array, surrounded by marzipan fruits etc.
Because we were poor students at the time, we had to break it up and sell
the feathers to re-coup our expenses.  I've often wished we could have kept
it, because the skin was well 'tanned' and with some additional treatment,
could have been used several more times.
It's on my list of things we should do again.

Esla of Ifeld
(Sue Carter)
Barony of Innilgard, Principality of Lochac
(Adelaide, Australia)