My unfortunate Cock-Gate incident

Ahhh, sometimes I pine for the halcyon days when I lived in London. Everything was so simple. Take food for example. If I was hungry, all I had to do was pick up the phone, dial any one of 200 food outlets in the vicinity, and within half an hour it would be delivered to my door. It was all so bloody civilised, and even better, home delivery meant that I didn't have to brave that desolate wasteland at the back of my house (aka the kitchen).

When I moved to deepest, darkest rural Oxfordshire, I remember vividly the events of that first night in my new house. Armed with the telephone number for 'Perfect Pizza', I dialled it only to be told that Forest Hill was too remote for home delivery. It was like being tasered. Except worse.

 Pic.No.1. Where for art thou, Romeo?

And so I was faced with a huge paradigm shift: Instead of people making my dinner for me and delivering it to my house, I had no option but to start cooking it for myself. Crikey, it was awful; I had to learn how to use all those finicky kitchen gadgets like the tin opener and the cooker. 

On top of that, I had to find places to buy ingredients, so as you can imagine, I was pretty pleased when I discovered a butcher's shop in the village adjacent to Forest Hill (approximately four miles hence).

But like all things 'countryside', visiting the butchers was way more complicated than shopping for meat in London. In London I just ate either chicken, lamb, beef or turkey. End of. In the countryside, the butcher's shop doesn't just stock normal meat, it also has a huge selection of 'game' meat that is shot locally, and is designed to confound and confuse the resident 'townie' shopper.

Take the situation that arose yesterday when I visited the aforementioned butcher's shop to buy something for dinner.

 Pic.No.1. This is 'Cricks', the Butchers shop where I buy all my meat

"Please could I have that small brown chicken in the window?" I asked the Butcher.

"It's not a chicken Madam, it's a pheasant," he replied, making me feel like a bit of a div.

I grimaced before nodding, "Ok, yeh, I'll take that please." [Note to reader: As I uttered the words, in my head I was praying that divine intervention would instruct me on how to cook the bugger.]

"Cock, Madam?" he asked.

"I beg your pardon?" I spluttered, nearly choking on my gum (classy).

The butcher regarded me strangely (which involved him looking at me in a slightly sideways fashion with half-closed eyes), and said in a measured tone, "cock or hen..... it means either the male or female bird."

I flinched almost imperceptibly realising the mistake I had made, "erm, what's the difference between the errm cock ..... and hen?" I asked trying to divert attention from my initial cock faux pas.

"Have a look, cock is bigger," he replied matter-of-factly.

In order to divert the butcher's attention from the laughter that was bubbling up inside me, I asked; "is there any difference in taste?" and beamed innocently.

"I'm not sure, Madam," he replied calmly, "I have only ever eaten cock."

Despite trying to control myself, I accidentally emitted a spluttering, half-choked snort, "I'll have a cock then," I added, before turning away from him in order to try and regain my composure.

Needless to say, that as soon as my cock was wrapped, I paid for it, snatched it off the counter and ran outside where my previously contained laughter exploded, much to the bemusement of some guy who was stood next to me with a dead bird hanging from his belt. Ah, the countryside. It's a different gravy. 

Pic.No.1. A cock pheasant (left). They look pretty cool don't they?

You will, however, be pleased to know that I worked out how to cook the pheasant (it was oven-roasted like a chicken), and mighty tasty it was too, as you can see from the picture below.

Pic.No.2. But they look much better when they are cooked and ready to eat

I would love to say that the cock-gate incident ended there, but unfortunately it didn't. This morning, Izzy asked if she could make a chicken recipe that she had found in her 'kids cookbook'. Given that cooking is a great way to keep kids entertained, I agreed wholeheartely. The only downside was that the recipe necessitated another trip to the butcher's shop to buy some chicken breasts.

We jumped into the car and drove the next village.

As we entered the shop, the doorbell sounded, rousing the butchers from their toils in the back of the shop. And would you believe it? The chap that came out was the same butcher who served me yesterday.

At first I wondered if he would remember me, but it soon became clear that he did when he greeted me with; "Hello. Did Madam enjoy her cock last night?"

Blimey. You couldn't make it up.