Permaculture Ethics
Permaculture Design Principles:
Permaculture Icons used with permission. http://www.permacultureprinciples.com/
Friday, January 1, 2010
Permaculture Ethics & Design Principles: Processing Pheasants
Permaculture Ethics
Permaculture Icons used with permission. http://www.permacultureprinciples.com/
How to...Pluck and Gut a Pheasant
1. Grab live pheasant by head just below scull, hold arm down making sure the pheasant cannot touch the ground. Twist body around in a clockwise circle while holding head firmly similar to twisting a towel for a sharp towel snap. Do this very quickly to avoid suffering and to prevent bird from flailing and possibly breaking bones.
2. Hang bird by the neck with twine in a cool room above zero degrees Celsius to keep it from freezing and below 10 degrees Celsius to keep the meat from rotting. Smell the bird each day to check to see if it smells ‘gamey’ if so, discard immediately.
3. Set up your area with a table lined with newspaper, two lined garbage bags, a bucket for each bird, paper towels or cloths, a bone knife and a pair of bone scissors. Wear warm old clothes and a full apron.
4. Cut twine and take bird into your arm, placing breast side up and somewhere in the middle, start plucking the feathers going toward head. Pluck feathers and put them in into a bag for keeping. If any skin comes off, discard into a different garbage bag. Keep skin taught by pulling slightly on the skin while pulling the feathers out. Grab feathers from the base, while pushing the feathers down and then pulling feather out in the same direction as the feather growth. Pluck up to the neck, down to the feet, and then up to the second joint on the wings.
5. Take a knife and score the skin on the foot. Hold the foot on either side of the scoring mark and break the leg bone. Place the foot on the top edge of a counter with the bird hanging down and the bone break at the counter corner. Keep the leg on the counter while pulling really hard down the other part of the bird leg until the foot separates. The foot will still have the tendons attached which will make eating the leg easier. Repeat for the other leg. Discard feet.
6. Grab head just below skull with one hand and just above torso with the other hand. Pull head from body with steady strength. Discard head.
7. With bone shears snip wing tips off on the outside of the joint. Discard wing tips.
8. Pull larynx and gizzard from neck. Birds hold gravelly bits in their gizzards to grind their food as they don’t have teeth for that. Place fingers in throat and scrape innards away from top of ribs as far back as you can reach.
9. Place the bird on the newspaper lined table. Locate the vent on the bottom of the bird and cut above the vent, pointing the blade directly toward the middle of the bird, preventing the piercing of the intestines leading to the vent. Place fingers into the incision and carefully pull the innards away from the bottom of the inside of the bird. Then pull the innards down and towards the incision. Be careful not to puncture the intestines as the odor can be unpleasant and could taint the meat. Discard innards.
10. Place bird in a bucket and carry to a clean sink. Rinse the inside and outside of the bird. Place in the fridge or in a sealed plastic bag then freeze.
11. Wash hands thoroughly using a nail brush. Throw garbage out. Save clean feathers for chicken nesting boxes, fly fishing lures, feather stuffed doggy beds, etc.
Time: 20 minutes to 1 hour, depending on plucking speed.
Disclaimer: Safe food handling requires certain considerations such as keeping food in cool temperatures, keeping feces away from meat and keeping yourself and the area very clean. Learn how to do these things to prevent food poisoning. Information provided does not include such considerations.
2. Hang bird by the neck with twine in a cool room above zero degrees Celsius to keep it from freezing and below 10 degrees Celsius to keep the meat from rotting. Smell the bird each day to check to see if it smells ‘gamey’ if so, discard immediately.
3. Set up your area with a table lined with newspaper, two lined garbage bags, a bucket for each bird, paper towels or cloths, a bone knife and a pair of bone scissors. Wear warm old clothes and a full apron.
4. Cut twine and take bird into your arm, placing breast side up and somewhere in the middle, start plucking the feathers going toward head. Pluck feathers and put them in into a bag for keeping. If any skin comes off, discard into a different garbage bag. Keep skin taught by pulling slightly on the skin while pulling the feathers out. Grab feathers from the base, while pushing the feathers down and then pulling feather out in the same direction as the feather growth. Pluck up to the neck, down to the feet, and then up to the second joint on the wings.
5. Take a knife and score the skin on the foot. Hold the foot on either side of the scoring mark and break the leg bone. Place the foot on the top edge of a counter with the bird hanging down and the bone break at the counter corner. Keep the leg on the counter while pulling really hard down the other part of the bird leg until the foot separates. The foot will still have the tendons attached which will make eating the leg easier. Repeat for the other leg. Discard feet.
6. Grab head just below skull with one hand and just above torso with the other hand. Pull head from body with steady strength. Discard head.
7. With bone shears snip wing tips off on the outside of the joint. Discard wing tips.
8. Pull larynx and gizzard from neck. Birds hold gravelly bits in their gizzards to grind their food as they don’t have teeth for that. Place fingers in throat and scrape innards away from top of ribs as far back as you can reach.
9. Place the bird on the newspaper lined table. Locate the vent on the bottom of the bird and cut above the vent, pointing the blade directly toward the middle of the bird, preventing the piercing of the intestines leading to the vent. Place fingers into the incision and carefully pull the innards away from the bottom of the inside of the bird. Then pull the innards down and towards the incision. Be careful not to puncture the intestines as the odor can be unpleasant and could taint the meat. Discard innards.
10. Place bird in a bucket and carry to a clean sink. Rinse the inside and outside of the bird. Place in the fridge or in a sealed plastic bag then freeze.
11. Wash hands thoroughly using a nail brush. Throw garbage out. Save clean feathers for chicken nesting boxes, fly fishing lures, feather stuffed doggy beds, etc.
Time: 20 minutes to 1 hour, depending on plucking speed.
Disclaimer: Safe food handling requires certain considerations such as keeping food in cool temperatures, keeping feces away from meat and keeping yourself and the area very clean. Learn how to do these things to prevent food poisoning. Information provided does not include such considerations.
Girlfriend's Guide to...Processing Pheasants
- Don’t wear lip gloss when plucking; the downy feathers float and are attracted to the hot air of storytellers.
- Take rings off prior to scooping out the guts.
- Wear a long apron to cover lap if you decide to lie down.
- Tie long hair back as it can get in the way when bending over the sticky bird carcass.
- Wear fingerless gloves if you are plucking in a cold room.
- Try to apprentice with someone for your first time as this is a physical job that is easier to learn by doing.
Ponderings: Processing Pheasants
Upon being invited to a ‘pheasant plucking & cleaning party’ my first thought was that if I went and did it, I might be grossed out and not want to eat the meat and even turn vegetarian. To have real integrity when it comes to being self-sufficient and having a close connection to my food source, then I needed to not only attend, but should even learn how to kill my pheasant.
When we arrived at his cool garage, the pheasants hanging there were beautiful. They were male with a vivid range of colouring that was magnificent. I imagined in times past, the kitchen staff of a wealthy manor saving the tail feathers for a hat for the Mistress of the house. Hanging meat is definitely a cold weather activity and coincidently, hunting pheasants is typically allowed from about Halloween to New Years.
I made a few tears in the skin from vigorous plucking, but it was mostly intact. My husband’s bird had quite a few big tears in it so Jay taught my husband how to skin it. By the time most of my bird’s feathers were off, it resembled a store bought chicken much more except the meat was darker and looked reddish-pink and the tiny fat pockets seen through the translucent skin was almost yellow.
I was a bit creeped out at the thought of just pulling the head off. Jay demonstrated and held the head and body almost under his chin to take advantage of his upper body strength. I started to hold it that way too, although anticipated the head popping off and blood squirting everywhere. The blood was thick and coagulated so it would not have done that, but I was feeling squeamish. I held the neck in front of my belly and pulled really hard. It took quite a bit of strength and did come off eventually, but I didn’t actually see anything because I had my eyes closed. The larynx was there and Jay said that apparently you can blow through the larynx and make it cluck, some people do the same thing to cow larynxes and make them ‘moo’. That sounded like gross games bored teenage farm boys play.
I cut the wings tips off as taking the feathers out of the wing tips was hard to do and would require pliers; the wing tips looked like little angel wings. Discarded body parts were fluctuating from gross to angelic. Scrapping the inside of the cavity to separate the innards from the ribs was easy to do as I imagined the inside of a turkey carcass.
As a city slicker and even after reading books on chickens, I didn’t realize that the ‘vent’ was not only the hole that the eggs came out, but that it is the only ‘bottom’ hole and that the poop comes out of it too. Anyway, Jay cut above the vent, making sure he did not pierce the bowels. I then had to scoop out all the guts, trying to do it all in one scoop, bringing the stuff from the front of the cavity to the back. I pushed the guts toward the back of the bird and mistakenly started pushing poo out the vent. As I got the guts out, I saw the full intestines and said they looked so smooth like little sausages, Jay commented that they are cute little poo sausages. Isn’t it odd how many food items resemble body parts? I accidentally pierced the guts by pulling them or poking them and the smell of 3 day old dead poo filled the air; puncturing that in a room full of other people is like letting out the worst cabbage garlic whiskey fart. At least it was my first time so everyone was forgiving.
I looked inside and saw that there was something still stuck to the ribs. It was bright red like sweet and sour chicken balls, so I thought it might be the lungs, sure enough, it was. There was no danger of piercing anything smelly so I dug right in there. I was worried that puncturing the guts might leave a scent on my hands like lingering onion-it didn’t.
All in all it was a good experience, I ended up with two pheasants for the freezer, a bag of feathers for the hen house, and another feeling of accomplishment and the confidence that I can take care of myself and my family; I just need to figure out how to get my hands on a bird.
I asked ‘Jay’ if he could call me when he was going to kill the pheasants so I could be there and learn how to do it. He informed me that he was breaking their necks when he picked them up because he didn’t want to drive home with 20 live pheasants in his car and that he would be hanging the pheasants for 3 days before we plucked. As I had recently taken only 6 young chickens home in a box in the van and they kept escaping at every stop, I knew why he was leery. He promised it was really easy to break their neck and that he could show me.
When we arrived at his cool garage, the pheasants hanging there were beautiful. They were male with a vivid range of colouring that was magnificent. I imagined in times past, the kitchen staff of a wealthy manor saving the tail feathers for a hat for the Mistress of the house. Hanging meat is definitely a cold weather activity and coincidently, hunting pheasants is typically allowed from about Halloween to New Years. http://www.freedigitalphotos.net/images/view_photog.php?photogid=902
I sat down to plucking with the body on my lap (it felt like a body to me) and the feathers came out pretty easily and I think that is because the bird was hung for 3 days. I felt like I needed permission to do this as this bird gave up its life, sort of, in order to become my food. But as the task master I am, I worked at pulling out the feathers as I thought about the bird giving up its life for my supper. It was odd holding the limp and cold body because it made me think of unconscious kittens in a strange way, the body was substantial yet cold and floppy so it didn’t really feel like a creature, it started to feel like a roast to me.
My mind drifted to my goal of self-sufficiency and then to using all of the body parts and using the feathers seemed easy. Fishermen could use the feathers for fly fishing lures. I am not sure if I would use the feet for anything, the only thing that came to mind was some sort of creepy key chain or voodoo style decorations. I wouldn’t even feed the head to dogs as the bones are hollow and can splinter. There must be some sort of use for the heads and feet that doesn’t involve drinking eyeballs or boiling brains which I am sure is considered a delicacy by some.I sat down to plucking with the body on my lap (it felt like a body to me) and the feathers came out pretty easily and I think that is because the bird was hung for 3 days. I felt like I needed permission to do this as this bird gave up its life, sort of, in order to become my food. But as the task master I am, I worked at pulling out the feathers as I thought about the bird giving up its life for my supper. It was odd holding the limp and cold body because it made me think of unconscious kittens in a strange way, the body was substantial yet cold and floppy so it didn’t really feel like a creature, it started to feel like a roast to me.
I made a few tears in the skin from vigorous plucking, but it was mostly intact. My husband’s bird had quite a few big tears in it so Jay taught my husband how to skin it. By the time most of my bird’s feathers were off, it resembled a store bought chicken much more except the meat was darker and looked reddish-pink and the tiny fat pockets seen through the translucent skin was almost yellow.
I was a bit creeped out at the thought of just pulling the head off. Jay demonstrated and held the head and body almost under his chin to take advantage of his upper body strength. I started to hold it that way too, although anticipated the head popping off and blood squirting everywhere. The blood was thick and coagulated so it would not have done that, but I was feeling squeamish. I held the neck in front of my belly and pulled really hard. It took quite a bit of strength and did come off eventually, but I didn’t actually see anything because I had my eyes closed. The larynx was there and Jay said that apparently you can blow through the larynx and make it cluck, some people do the same thing to cow larynxes and make them ‘moo’. That sounded like gross games bored teenage farm boys play.
I cut the wings tips off as taking the feathers out of the wing tips was hard to do and would require pliers; the wing tips looked like little angel wings. Discarded body parts were fluctuating from gross to angelic. Scrapping the inside of the cavity to separate the innards from the ribs was easy to do as I imagined the inside of a turkey carcass.
As a city slicker and even after reading books on chickens, I didn’t realize that the ‘vent’ was not only the hole that the eggs came out, but that it is the only ‘bottom’ hole and that the poop comes out of it too. Anyway, Jay cut above the vent, making sure he did not pierce the bowels. I then had to scoop out all the guts, trying to do it all in one scoop, bringing the stuff from the front of the cavity to the back. I pushed the guts toward the back of the bird and mistakenly started pushing poo out the vent. As I got the guts out, I saw the full intestines and said they looked so smooth like little sausages, Jay commented that they are cute little poo sausages. Isn’t it odd how many food items resemble body parts? I accidentally pierced the guts by pulling them or poking them and the smell of 3 day old dead poo filled the air; puncturing that in a room full of other people is like letting out the worst cabbage garlic whiskey fart. At least it was my first time so everyone was forgiving.
I looked inside and saw that there was something still stuck to the ribs. It was bright red like sweet and sour chicken balls, so I thought it might be the lungs, sure enough, it was. There was no danger of piercing anything smelly so I dug right in there. I was worried that puncturing the guts might leave a scent on my hands like lingering onion-it didn’t.
All in all it was a good experience, I ended up with two pheasants for the freezer, a bag of feathers for the hen house, and another feeling of accomplishment and the confidence that I can take care of myself and my family; I just need to figure out how to get my hands on a bird.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)