h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Good article, tho' I think we just broke our's neck and let it hang for a couple of days...... On a similar note, how to prepare a fish is at http://www.h2g2.com/A250354 .
BCNU - Crescent

I trust you at least removed the feathers before eating

I wonder whether anyone has the experience to carry the series forward with sheep, pig, cow...?

All I can say is yuk yuk yuk!!!Or should it be cluck cluck cluck!
I could never kill anything.The article is very graphic don't you think.
I bet your the sort of person who pulled legs off daddy long-legs until there was only a currant left!
I love chicken but if I had to kill one in order to eat it I think I'd become a vegetarian.

Ffmike, of course the feathers were removed A couple of days hanging made it a bit gamier, you actually bury cormarents and shags for a few days before eating, to make them gamier. Sorry starting to get side tracked......
Drool Frood, I do not like killing things, I like torture even less. Insects are safe from me (except midges, clegs and mossies - and even then they only get it when they go for me However knowing this sort of stuff could be important. Also meat from your own animals, or caught and killed yourself is always better tasting. To my way of thinking, it should be if you cannot face up to what has happened to that animal (and it is pretty graphic), you shouldn't eat it, any other way, to me, seems cowardly or ignorant. If you cannot kill an animal, you must not be hungry enough
BCNU - Crescent

Sorry I guess I'm just a cowardly woman.
I daresay that If I WAS hungry enough I would kill an animal but I would have to be REAL starving.
No offence was mean't it was just an opinion.

Guess it's a bit like the talking cow in the restraunt at the end...

As has been said, whatever meat you eat it's been killed somewhere along the line. It's just how it's done and who does it.
Do it all yourself and you know what the animal's been eating, how it was looked after and ultimately, how it died. I think that is a humane way of doing it.
It's also a lot more control than I have when I pick up my shrink wrapped piece of meat at the supermarket.

Yes. I definately believe that you should be able to face up to what you're eating. I grow carrots. This is the extent of my food providing skills, so I guess I probably shouldn't talk, but...
I'm as much of a vegitarian as I can be as a 14 year old in a family that gets offended when you don't eat their cooking. This relates somehow to my parents' divorce, I think, but I'm not sure why.
I have done dissections in school. Dissecting a chicken sounds interesting. I wouldn't really trust myself to do it right enough that I'd eat it though(chicken being a meat that I do eat).
For some reason, fish really disturb me. Dead ones that you've just killed, that is. I avoid fishing for this reason. My grandfather gives me "she's weak and can't be blamed for it because she's a woman" looks when I say I don't want to. I don't, needless to say, eat fish.
It was a good article. I hope more of yours get approved.

Thanks for the compliment. I've got a bunch more Guide Entries in the pipeline, so I'm sure you haven't seen the last of me.

As far as being 14 and vegetarian goes -- that's a tough one. I was a vegan for about 5 years, but that was when I was out and living on my own. Probably the best you can do is eat more veggies and less meat. Of course, this would be easier if you can convince the rest of the family to serve some healthy meat alternatives -- beans, whole grains, nuts. But it doesn't sound like you're in a real supportive environment for that right now.

My people were experienced birders. We ate dove, quail, duck, wild turkey, and the occassional goose that we hunted, and chickens and turkeys that we raised. I had one relative who was the champion chicken processor. He could catch a chicken with one hand, snap its neck in a second by shaking it, chop its head off (on the special chicken stump in his yard),pluck it, clean it, and have it ready for the frying pan during halftime of the football game. I'll never forget his skill with that axe, just as I will never forget biting into, and spitting birdshot into my plate during a meal.

Things have obviously improved in the chicken preperation field since the day I was chased around my grandfather's backyard by a headless, blood-spurting chicken. I was 3 or 4-years-old and this 'event' is my oldest memory. Pass the stuffing. Yum.

Well, I'm working on it. My mother will cook tofu, although my father won't let it in the house. They've also both learned of the joys of ground turkey as an alternative to ground beef. The worst times really come when someone has gone to great length to prepare meatloaf and I have to walk up to them and say, "Um, I don't eat beef, remember?" and then they ask "When did that start?" and I reply, "three years ago."
But it'll get better. I suppose I should learn to cook and then cook what I want and make them eat it.

We're adding ducks and turkeys to the mix this year, so our bird-cleaning skills should widen somewhat. If I get off my butt and get a new barrel for the shotgun we'll be after pheasant as well.

I begin to wonder... How much difference is there really between cleaning a turkey and a chicken? Besides the size, of course.

Penquin Girl, in the Falkland Islands, during World War 2, when the slow-flying British planes flew past, all the penquins would follow them by moving their heads in the direction the plane was flying. A bit like watching tennis. Occassionaly a plane would fly towards them. The birds would lift their heads to follow the plane and then, all of a sudden, 10,000 penquins would fall flat on their backs.

Ask me again around Thanksgiving this year By then I should have firsthand experience.

If you're going to be adding ducks, have you got the chinese crispy duck recipe sorted the?

Well, I've made Chinese crispy duck, but to be honest, I'm not real enthusiastic. Plain old American roast duck for me.

Ok so you'll go for the second best way to cook duck then.

Living without proper cooking facilities sometimes makes me just wish I could put a roast (of anything) on

Also without proper cooking facilities i feel i should offer the benefit of my experience.

When cooking chicken nuggets for twenty people while living in university halls you will need:

-Four entire chickens'
-a friends dissection kit (biology students are good for this),
another friends desk (physists are good for this because
they keep all their work in a computer away from raw chicken)
-a saucepan (the one without the inch thick layer of rust in the bottom)
-one pound of bread crumbs and some paprika
-and a litre and a half of veggy oil.

Never do anything involving raw meat in your own room
because it is a bugger to get out of the carpet.

A more useful comment is probably that we made veggy
nuggets by mixing instant potato with half the amount
of water, sweet corn, peas, paprika and some grated
cheese (i think) and cover it in breadcrumbs.
Unbelieveably they are very nice! and theres less blood
when chasing them around outside.

Good luck in getting the meat outiof your carpets....

What goes around comes around, looneytoons. That story which you told was one that I originally brought up on the penguin forum a few month's ago. I doubt that's where you heard it, but it could have been. My SN was different then. I just find that amusing... oh well. I haven't been online in a week. The withdrawl is showing.