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Last weekend my wife and I visitied Deborah Krasner in Putney, Vermont, who's in the process of researching a book on eating animals sustainably. Part of this research involves raising animals on her property. Her goal is to raise enough chickens and guinea fowl to last her and her family the whole year (roughly 40 birds).

After nearly 5 months of happy life pecking for grubs through the yard and feeding on kitchen scraps, slaughter day finally came. I was asked to lend a hand with the occasion (specifically, I was asked to be the executioner), and I happily obliged, knowing that it would offer me a chance to not only play around with her incredible wood-fired pizza oven, but that I might get a good bird out of it in the process.

The following photos document one Guinea fowl's journey from the yard, to the table.

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A recently dispatched bird. Unlike a chicken, Guinea fowl can fly for short distances. Apparently, over the course of the summer, a few of them jumped the electric fences designed to keep foxes away from the birds. Four birds were missing on kill day - undoubtedly victims of the foxes.

They have the most beautiful stripes and spots on their feathers.
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The Greenbrier Poultry Picker. An ancient machine designed to quickly strip a bird's body of its feathers. The rubber "fingers" rotate around a metal cylinder rapidly, while you hold the scalded bird by its feet. Feathers are plucked, and deposited onto the ground below.
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The plucked, gutted, Guinea fowl, ready for the pot. With any animal, it's a shame to let any part go to waste. With an animal that a good friend of yours has raised from a chick, it'd be an outright crime.

This bird was used in three preparations on one plate. The breasts were slow-cooked on the bone to keep them juicy, the legs were first confited, then turned into a torchon of rillettes, and finally sliced and seared until they were crispy, and the feet, back, neck, and wings were made into a rich guinea fowl jus.
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And here are the results.

Since the bird was raised in Vermont, I found it fitting to reduce the jus, and spike it with a little maple syrup. Two potatoes - crisp baby Yukon golds and a puree of sweet potatoes enhanced with a few Vadouvan spices round out the plate along with toasted hazelnuts and a handful of wild arugula from Long Island and.

A delicious finish for a delicious bird.

While the breast meat is very mild - like a good chicken - the leg meat has a distinct gamey flavor, almost duck-like in quality. Prepared as a crisp confit (the cylinder sitting on the arugula), it's outstanding. I'll be serving the remainder of it tonight paired with preserved kumquats as an hor d'ouevre at a private dinner.
 


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