January 2011 - Roadkill

Roadkill

A surprisingly evil pheasant

I have just finished chatting with my father on the phone and his closing words were: ‘Right, I’d better make the pastry for my pheasant pie’.  Not too unusual a thing to do I’m sure you’ll agree, what made me laugh (and got me typing) was my automatic presumption that said pheasant most certainly did not come from the local butcher. 

You see my father lives in the middle of Wales, he has a rather splendid water mill with a dozen acres or so of land, right in the middle of those acres is quite a busy road and busy roads mean roadkill. 

So far my father’s roadkill meals have been limited to our feathered friends, pheasants and ducks to be specific, he has shied away from badger as he has been told it has a very strong flavour and is hopeful, though so far unsuccessful, of finding a rabbit.

I was talking to friend the other day about all things roadkill and they told me about someone they know who moved into a new house and on the day of the big move found a deer at the side of the road, still warm but very much dead.  So, seeing the potential of many a tasty meal, chucked dead Bambi in the back of the van. 

A surprisingly pleasant badger

Bambi needed to be bled of course, so new home-owner constructed a tripod-thing in the garden and hung up the deer before bleeding him out.  Now a dead deer (or indeed, any deer) contains a hell of a lot of blood.  So picture the scene of a new neighbour moving into your street, you pop round to say hello, do the ‘welcome to the road’ bit only to see a garden full of blood and a deer hanging upside down from a make-shift tripod, I’m sure he made quite an impression.

Another friend’s father is, like my own, prone to eating things he finds at the roadside (please do not judge my friends on the fact they all seem to have road kill related stories). Her father however does not limit himself or birds or meats one would find in the butcher. He has been known to serve badger, squirrel, fox; if it’s dead and free, he’ll eat it and in turn so has my friend. Unlike said friend I have never been served roadkill, well not knowingly anyway, but would I eat it? Yes I think I would.

Lunch.  Nom nom nom.

It is not a food for the squeamish certainly, but it’s free, the death was probably instantaneous and it’s about as free-range as you can get. It’s actually a rather ethical way to source your meat. I suppose it depends where you live, eating roadkill in the countryside does not seem as bizarre as it would in the middle of say, London – casseroled skanky urban fox anyone?

p.s. If memory serves me correctly, there is something about it being illegal to eat an animal you have hit with your own car however as long as your car didn’t do the hitting you are free to eat the meat.  (Yes a cynic could suggest that you could hunt in convoy, but that’s a little sinister). 

Tips on eating roadkill

Not being an expert on all things roadkill, here is some advice from my father for anyone wishing to cook up a road-side pheasant or duck:

“Here in Wales, pheasants are abundant; the locals call them sheep with wings, for neither are very bright. Apparently there is more conscience regarding eating duck.

The process is quite simple, don’t hang them for that increases the flavour and you will soon get tired of it, don’t pluck but skin, and don’t let the contents of the crop go everywhere. If you do hang then upside down in the cellar, I’d recommend warning anybody before they go down for wine, or if you choose not to warn them then listen out -  it can be entertaining.

Slow cook or pressure-cook the bird; let the meat fall of the carcass. Or simply just take the breasts off and chuck the rest away”.