One thing city dwellers take for granted is the availability of merchandise. In smaller communities you soon learn to “make do.” I had a lot to learn when I left the big city and I really was trying, then one afternoon my husband came home with a dead chicken. I recognized it from pictures I had seen in magazines. It had been plucked but the head and feet were still intact.
“Look what the neighbor next door gave us.” He announced.
I took one look at the naked bird when I realized what was different about it … It had to be cleaned.
“I just can’t do it”. I confessed.
“Well, I really can’t take it back. The neighbours would think you were pretty stupid if you can’t even clean a chicken.”
Well, those were fighting words! Like a soldier going to battle, I prepared a plan of attack. The kitchen table would be the battleground and lined up on the right were all the knives I could muster, on the left a large plastic pail, the final resting place of the debris from the battle. I donned my battle-dress, an enormous big apron, and was ready to go.
I placed the bird on the plastic table top and, knife in hand, attempted to make an incision. That bird had skin like a crocodile. My gentle probes became gashes of fury as I jabbed and jabbed again. At last I affected an entry.
Smothering down my nausea I slid my fingers into the entrails and began a gentle tugging. I tugged and tugged but that dumb old bird wasn’t going to part with anything. The sleek finish on the table offered little resistance and I chased that slippery fowl from one end of the table to the other.
My neat four inch incision now extended nearly to the neck. With a last desperate pull the remainder of the entrails gave way. The chicken lay there defeated, a morass of battle scars. The enemy had succumbed. I looked at the cadaver with concern. Any resemblance between it and the original chicken were long gone. There was no doubt about it, this was no longer a roasting fowl, this would have to be cut up chicken.
I have never attempted to clean a chicken since, but when I go to the supermarket and see those rows of fowl neatly wrapped in their plastic dresses I can’t resist a small salute. Even a victorious winner respects a courageous loser.
