One of my neighbours rang me to tell me she had too many cockerels. "They are terrorising all the hens," she said, "constantly raping them, and keeping everyone awake with their crowing." People are out harvesting until three in the morning. Then they're up again at six the following day. You don't want your precious sleep disturbed by cockerels bellowing and hens squawking. We agreed that there would have to be a cockerel cull. I've seen Yvette kill poultry, hanging them by the feet on the barn door and then slitting their throats, but I was too squeamish to do it. My neighbour phoned another neighbour and asked him to help. He said he'd come round with his shotgun and shoot the birds. She rang me back to tell me this, and to ask if I'd like the corpses. Bang! "Oh, he's shot one." Bang! "Oh, he's shot another one. Right, he'll be round in 20 minutes."
Round he came, with a plump plastic bag. We sat and drank Kirs in the garden and discussed baling machines, religion and hunting. He farms organically but hunts: foxes are a pest and kill his newborn lambs. He told me his hunting companions call him Monsieur le Conservateur because he always misses. Then away he drove in his bright blue van, leaving me with the two dead birds and not a clue what to do with them.
Luckily, that night I was going out to supper with Gaston and Lucienne, who live just over the hill. They'd wanted me to come on a rainy night, so that they could be properly sociable. Tonight, the weather was fine. It couldn't be helped; we'd catch dinner together and then Gaston would go back to his harvesting. I took the cockerels with me, and asked Lucienne to show me how to prepare them for the pot. I'd give her one and keep one for me. She scoffed at this: "I've got all the poultry I can eat."
Both her van and Gaston's tractor had broken down earlier in the day and had had to be hauled back, so everything was running late. Gaston was still out, finishing off the barley with his son, and Lucienne had all her evening jobs to do. We fed the baby grandson, aged five months, who was staying with them, and then walked around the vast farmyard, making sure all the livestock were properly penned for the night. One shed housed a flock of baby partridges. "Will you eat all those?" I asked. "Of course not. They're for the hunt."
Back in the house, we seized the cockerel-cleaning equipment: four lengths of thin string, a sharp knife, a bucket of boiling water, a blowtorch. In the yard, squatting, Lucienne dipped the birds into the hot water, which made them easier to pluck. Deftly she pulled off the feathers. Five minutes per bird and they were done.
Next she singed them with the blowtorch, to remove any stubbly bits, and scraped them with her knife. She cut off the heads and feet. She made incisions, fore and aft, and, having knotted the intestines at the ends, pulled them out. She rummaged about and pulled out the other innards. Hearts, gizzards, livers went on one side. The bloody debris was thrown away. Then she crooked the legs and wings into place and put the birds into a clean bag.
Next job was to go into the potager and dig up potatoes and a lettuce. To the kitchen with these, where we got supper ready. Something very simple that wouldn't spoil with waiting. Ham and saucisson, and Raclette cheese melted over the new potatoes. I was very hungry. It was past nine o'clock. Lucienne, devoted wife, didn't want to eat before her husband came home. I was longing for a drink, despite the two Kirs I'd had earlier, but none was poured until the master of the house returned home at 11pm.
We ate dinner at midnight. Lucienne poured us large glasses of Porto as aperitifs. Gaston fetched out a bottle of Bordeaux. They pressed me to try a thimbleful of their Calvados, bottled in 1956. I drove home under the stars, singing. An enormous snail was eating its way through the lettuce seedlings that I had carelessly left out.
Next day I cooked coq au vin. It's in the freezer, waiting for the next guest.
