My friend Maria said she would come with me to help with finding the appropriate stores. You see, there is not a large grocery store that has everything, but rather lots of little stores that sell a few things, so you have to go to a variety of stores to pick up the items you need. All in all, it can take the better part of the day to get the ingredients you need to make a meal.
We headed over to San Quintin to get the chicken and other ingredients such as onion, garlic, tomatoes, flour, potatoes, etc. We started out at a small store that had some vegetables, but not everything I needed. I picked up what I could and off we went in search of more. About an hour later and walking all over town, we got to a place that had chicken.
Now, having been raised in the USA, I am accustomed to going to the grocery store and having my chicken put nicely in the package, skinless and boneless and with no blood anywhere...let alone flies! It is stacked nicely with an expiration date and plastic covering it in a very nice and sanitary way. I have seen the butcher stores in Mexico and realized that the experience would be somewhat different. Generally, the whole chicken (beak, head, eyes, feet, skin) is hung up from a hook and there is no refrigeration. Flies are buzzing around and the smell is pretty strong. Sometimes there is refrigeration and the meat from chicken, pork and beef is just thrown in, all in a big lump of like meat. It is bloody and messy and doesn't look so sanitary!! Flies buzz around the meat and there is hardly ever a sink for the butcher to wash his hands at. He handles the money, the meat and everything else (bathroom???) with those hands. Have I painted a pretty picture?? Ok...well, I figured I could live with it and it is just a part of living in a developing country.
What never crossed my mind was that I'd have to buy a LIVE chicken. Yes, a live one. Turns out they don't even sell butchered meat...you buy the animal and butcher it yourself. Yes, that is correct…you have to kill it yourself! I was freaking out! I didn’t know if I should cry or laugh, but I felt like doing both. I have always thought that as a meat-eater I should be willing to kill my food if I am going to eat it, but when faced with the prospect, it was definitely not something I was up for.
I spent the evening fretting over what had to be done the next day. I felt so foolish for being such a big baby. I woke up several times in the night, nervously worried about our new friend “Feathers” (thank you to Sierra for giving him a name and making it personal!).
The next day I woke up and lingered over breakfast (eggs, of course!) and generally procrastinated as much as possible. I finally meandered over to Maria’s house and got ready to do “the job”…I told her how worried I was about it and she thought that was just the funniest thing. She had never bought meat from the store or a butcher, killing her own meat was just how things were done. My reluctance was cause for great jest. Finally, I was saved by Maria’s daughter, Maria del Rosario. She is 13 years old and declared to me that she thinks it’s fun to kill the chickens and she would do it! Sierra responded with “Cool!!” and off they went, with Feathers in one hand and a machete in the other.
A few minutes later the deed was done. I was feeling let down with myself for being such a wimp, but did run to get my camera to memorialize the event. I found out first hand that the phrase “running around like a chicken with its head cut off” is true…after they cut the throat and let the blood drain out, Maria del Rosario held the chicken down on it’s back while it’s feet kicked and ran for about two minutes. I thought it would be kind of cool to actually let it run around, but she didn’t.Maria brought out a huge cauldron of boiling water and picked up the chicken by its’ feet and plunked it into the hot water for a few seconds. After she pulled it out, we all took turns taking handfuls of feathers and pulling them out. Next, we took the nearly bald chicken into the kitchen and held it over the flames. They were too hot for me and I was grossing out at holding the chicken by its feet and halfway cut off head, so Maria took it and held it right down in the fire.
You would be amazed at how tough the hands of the women are, from cooking over fire all their lives with little or no utensils…they reach right into the fire to get out the wood, or to turn over the tortillas or grab the pots. My hands were not at all accustomed to the heat and I couldn’t do this at all.
The fire crisped up the remaining feather stubs so we were able to get the rest of them out. Next we took some machetes and cut up the chicken…Maria saved the feet and head and innards to cook with.
I spent most of the afternoon removing meat from the bones so I could make some chicken nuggets, and put the remaining bones into water with vegetables to make soup for the next day. No one had had chicken without the bones in and this was quite a novelty. I think it went over pretty well and people seemed to like it. I was able to serve 12 people dinner for 2 days off that one chicken!
Sierra and I agreed that we weren’t too keen on eating our friend Feathers, so we didn’t really eat much for the next few days.
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