When mischief-makers cry fowl

THE Indian community, renowned for their innovative culinary skills, have, over the decades, revolutionised the ordinary chicken. Our dissection is virtually visceral and nothing is left to waste: we fry the skin and blood for “bites”, make a delicious curry or breyani with the prime cuts, indulge in a decadent giblet chutney, use the less-favoured portions, like head and feet, for an invigorated soup and leave the parson’s nose for our visitors. We’ve even changed the names of several crows like Cornish, hens, culls, roosters to “dressed chicken”, “live chicken” and “running fowl curry”. And our brothers introduced tikka and tandoori.

History reveals that, from the early days of indentured labour, Indians could only afford the luxury of chicken at weekends, hence the ubiquitous trip to the market on a Saturday morning. But that later changed as the roving “fowl van” brought our feathered friends to the door. Being a childhood lookout for the van was rewarding. Then technology spread its wings and butchers began stocking freshly slaughtered chickens, cleaned and cut making obsolete the ritual of cutting and cleaning. And just like the Leon Schuster movie, markets now boast de-feathering machines.

But the recent outbreak of avian flu in South Africa had curry lovers in alarm. Just like sardine beaching scuttlebutt, rumours have been rife on social media that 90 000 chickens are infected in KZN. This is a ruse and nothing but the work of mischiefmakers. The truth is that SA temporarily banned the sale of live chicken because of an outbreak of the disease, in the Free State and Mpumalanga, where 5 000 birds died. It was anticipated that some 19 000 birds were to be culled.

So if you thought Saturdays will never be the same again, get over your apoplectic platitudes, there are plenty of frozen chickens around for you to enjoy tradition.

KEVIN GOVENDER

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