by Rick Bragg
As soon as it appeared to notice the corn, she moved a few steps away, and the chicken trotted over to the kernels. She waited as it pecked up the corn, then dropped another few kernels at her feet and moved again. The secret was to time the drop so that it fell just as the chicken was finishing the previous one, and move not toward the chicken but away from it, so the chicken would feel secure.
Sooner or later, the old man had assured her, the chicken would just go stupid.
Ava dropped another few kernels at her feet, but this time just froze, and as the chicken trotted over and began to peck, she snatched it up by the neck, as quick as a mongoose. Before even half a squawk, she covered the bird’s eyes with a grip around its head, and, with a violent, twisting motion, killed it quick.
The old man just nodded from under his halo of blue smoke.
The girl was a quick study, by God.
She asked him later if she was supposed to grab its head and cover its eyes out of mercy. He told her the head just offered the best grip, and she nodded. It did indeed make a sure handle.
This would be a skill she passed to her own children and grandchildren. Sometimes, near the end of her life, she forgot and dispatched a few that her grandchildren had named, but she did not mean to.
“She was quick, even when she got old,” my mother said. “My God, she was quick.”
It was not always a perfect plan. Sometimes more than one chicken, more than the doomed one, would be attracted by the bait, making the whole process impossible. “Keep a rock or hickory nut in your apron pocket,” he told her, to scatter the other birds, but she was such a poor marksman that she was just as apt to break a window or hit the old man himself, which was probably an accident, though we cannot say for sure. But she was usually good at stalking chickens, and she stalked them across decades, never asking for help, even in her old age. I watched her do it myself as a child, fascinated, bloodthirsty, because it meant there would be something delicious on the stove as soon as the bloodletting was done.
Once the chicken was dispatched, she and the old man went to work immediately with the plucking and cleaning, which had to be accomplished with dispatch in a world without refrigeration. We are not often a finicky people, but have a suspicion of poultry, so much that it is hard to believe we have any European blood in us at all. The idea that our ancestors used to hang game like pheasants and duck so they would “go high,” to improve the flavor somehow, causes only tremors now. We took no chances, and it was not uncommon for a chicken to go from blissfully pecking in the yard to Sunday dinner in an hour and a half. The Deep South does not lend itself to aging much of anything, not even liquor; to use smoke or salt to cure ham, bacon, or sausage is a true art form. But with chickens, it was right then or nothing, even in cool weather.
Ava fetched down the big skillet, but the old man said no, they would fry a chicken another day. This bird, which had a nice little bit of fat on him despite his battles in the dust, was going in the oven. First, though, the old man told her, he needed to get it good and drunk.
“Seems like that would have been easier before you cut its head off,” Ava said.
* * *
• • •
The old man loved his cider, and always had a few jugs cooling somewhere—in the barn, or springhouse, or just under the bed. The law did not bother a man much for making cider—not like for corn liquor, for sure—but the old man had learned that the law bothered a man sometimes for no good reason at all, so he made some halfhearted effort to be sneaky about it. The old man did not even consider cider-drunk to be a true drunk, like from moonshine. Cider-drunk was play drunk, half drunk, pretend drunk. He could drink a jug of cider, he said, maybe even a jug and a half, and walk a bridge rail, or recite the Exodus. She would remember it as the first true foolishness to pass the old man’s lips in a long and serious time. “But we only need a cup or so,” the old man said, “to get this chicken drunk enough.”
First he rounded up his vegetables. Roast or baked chicken was a plain thing, he said, if you didn’t flavor it, same as anything else. He needed carrots, which were not grown easily in the soil here and had to be store-bought, sweet onions, and some turnips, which would cook into the chicken and absorb the chicken fat in turn. There was little on the earth, the old man said, better than turnips cooked in the renderings of a nice fat bird.
The closest thing to a baking dish the boy and girl had was a Dutch oven, and that would do. He prepared the chicken by rubbing it all over, both on the skin and inside the body cavity, with good homemade butter, and put a good half-pound, it seemed, inside the bird. Then he rubbed the whole thing again, first with coarse salt, and then with black pepper. They had a little red pepper—her momma had given her some spices as a wedding gift—and he dusted the chicken all over with that, too, but only lightly, and laid it in the iron pot. He did not chop the vegetables, only peeled them, and put them in whole. Then he mixed about a cup of hard cider with a cup of water and poured it around the chicken, so it could steam up into the bird as it cooked slowly in the woodstove.
Do not cook the liver and gizzards in the bird, but let them cook outside, with the vegetables, he told her. She would need them later, he said.
“Some people put apples inside the chicken,” he told her, but the apple cider had a spice the apples didn’t have. The hard cider had a different taste from the sweeter soft cider, a kick, and the cooking would steam the liquor out of it, he said, and just leave the rest.
He said a young bird would cook, covered, in two hours on a woodstove, but that halfway through he liked to take off the lid and, using a big spoon, ladle some of the cider liquid and rendered chicken fat over the bird. This kept the breast from drying out quite so much.
“But the truth is, I don’t think the smartest cook in this whole world has figgered a way to really keep the breast meat from drying out, at least a little, in a chicken cooked thisaway, nor a fried chicken, neither.”
When it was about three-quarters done, he said, it was time to put on the mashed potatoes. The mashed potatoes, he said, were the easiest thing to mess up completely in the long history of cooking food; you could cook the flavor right out of them.
Cook them, he told her, with just enough salted water to cover—gold, white, red, it didn’t matter—till the corners on the quartered potatoes began to melt and round off. Cook them until there is almost no liquid left, at which point you slowly, slowly stirred in the butter and the milk, began to mash, then stirred in more milk and maybe more butter if needed, and mashed some more, till they went fluffy (he did not actually say “fluffy”; it was not in his lexicon), and only then added the secret ingredient, the thing that made them sing.
The chicken should be golden brown but tender, from the steam, and the liquid should have cooked to a thicker, buttery, delicious residue. Then you took a little of the liver and gizzards and diced them fine—careful, because the liver would try to go to mush, he said—and combined that with two tablespoons, at least, of the golden fat from the pan, in a skillet.
“Use that with your flour,” the old man said, “to start your gravy.”
She would say, a half-century later, that this was the meal that taught her not merely to cook food but to love eating it, more even than beans and ham.
The chicken was tender and moist, even the troublesome breast, but it was the turnips, carrots, and whole onions that made it work. The bite of the cider, as with all alcohol, had steamed away, like the spirit it was, leaving just a little something, something she did not have the words to explain.
“Why, t’ain’t drunk a-tall,” she said.
The old man told her that a cook who could prepare a juicy roast chicken was already halfway home.
A cook who could prepare a good pot of mashed potatoes, he said, was even closer.
But a fine turnip, salted and peppered and cooked in chicken fat and butter, was “rare fine.”
Rare fine.
They talked as pretty as they cooked.
Chicken Roasted in Cider with Carrots, Turnips, and Onion
Buying poultry in modern times is a conundrum. A fat hen is the best modern-day alternative to the scrawny, battle-hardened game rooster. This is one of those times when tradition must yield to common sense. Still, except for the tenderness, and the greater fat content, the chickens of old probably did have a superior, much cleaner flavor, before the age of fish meal, before the time of the mutant, hopped-up, chemically and genetically sculpted poultry you see in the supermarket. Free-range chickens, as much as I hate to admit it, are more than a pretension; they taste more like the chickens I remember from my childhood.
WHAT YOU WILL NEED
2 carrots
1 large turnip, or 2 medium-sized ones
2 medium sweet onions (can substitute 2 large leeks)
1½ sticks salted butter
1 fat baking hen
1 tablespoon coarse salt
1 tablespoon coarsely ground black pepper
1½ cups cider, hard or soft
1½ cups water
Cayenne pepper (to taste)
HOW TO COOK IT
First prepare the vegetables, and set them aside. They are meant to be eaten, not just as seasoning. Chop the carrots into pieces about 2 to 3 inches long, and peel and chop the turnips into pieces about 2 inches square. You want chunks, not small, diced, bite-sized cubes. Peel and quarter the onions, or if you prefer, cut chunks of leeks, which work very, very well in this dish.
Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.
Let the butter soften to room temperature. Take the half stick and cover the skin of the chicken all over with it, and, as Jimmy Jim did, butter the inside of the body cavity. Then, with a devil-may-care look on your face, toss the other, whole stick of butter inside the bird. It will feel good to do it.
“Some people put lemons and oranges and other stuff, but I think you just don’t need it,” said my mother, echoing her grandfather.
Salt and pepper the outside of the bird, then let it sit about 5 or 10 minutes. My people believe the flesh will absorb the salt better this way. Pour the cider and water into the roasting pan, being careful not to wash your handiwork from the bird.
Dust the chicken lightly with the cayenne. You are not going for heat here, just a little dash of flavor.
Place the chicken in the oven and cook, covered, between 2 and 2½ hours. You do not need to uncover the bird. “It’ll go golden brown. Watch your drumsticks. If they’re going dark brown, it’s about past done, you know?”
Do not be dismayed if the white meat is not as juicy. “White meat is trouble,” my mother says. “It’s a shame, with all the messin’ around with nature them mad scientists has done, that they haven’t made a chicken with all dark meat.”
I told her we should try duck, and she believed she would stick to chicken. “It’s a little too late to be tryin’ crazy stuff now.”
You can let the chicken rest a few minutes before carving, if you can wait that long.
Chicken Gravy
WHAT YOU WILL NEED
½ cup whole milk
1 cup water
2 tablespoons drippings from the roasting pan
1 tablespoon butter
2 tablespoons flour
½ teaspoon black pepper
½ teaspoon salt
HOW TO COOK IT
Combine the milk and water, and set aside. My mother sometimes does this dish with water alone, but the milk adds a slight creaminess.
In a 9-inch skillet, combine the drippings from the roasting pan with the butter, and bring it to a nice sizzle over medium heat. Stir in the flour. This is not milk gravy, in the traditional sense, so you want it to cook a little longer, still stirring, till you get a nice medium-brown color.
Slowly, add the milk-and-water mixture, continuing to stir as it thickens, and sprinkle in the pepper and about half the salt. Turn off the heat. It should thicken fine.
Thickness is a matter of preference. We like not a thick, pasty gravy but a fairly thin one—though not watery—which goes well on your potatoes. For biscuits, you may want to let it thicken a little more. Taste it. If it needs salt, add more until it makes you happy. If you think to yourself, “I could just about eat this with a spoon,” you have done well.
Mashed Potatoes
WHAT YOU WILL NEED
2 to 2½ pounds white potatoes, gold- or red-skinned
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup whole milk
½ stick butter, softened
1 teaspoon mayonnaise
HOW TO COOK IT
Peel and quarter the potatoes; larger potatoes, cut into eighths, or near abouts. Do not dice them. They will “turn watery,” she believes, if they are cut too small.
Salt the water and potatoes as you begin cooking, not the cooked potatoes after they are done. Boil, as Jimmy Jim mandated, till they are done but the corners have not begun to melt, to blunt. If you are unsure, just take a piece of potato out and gently press down on it. If it mashes easily, it’s done.
My mother mashes with a large fork, gradually adding the milk and butter. You may not need all the milk, but you will damn sure need all the butter. At the end, stir in the mayonnaise, being sure not to use too much, and to incorporate it thoroughly.
You want fluffy potatoes, not chunky ones. You do not want to whip them. You want just enough texture so that they will hold together in a perfect but ragged mound, with little peaks and valleys. I do not care how froufrou this sounds. We take our potatoes seriously.
* * *
• • •
The use of mayonnaise in such dishes dates back to harsh times when butter and milk were scarce. I guess it is a little funny, but the world never seemed to run short of mayonnaise. The secret ingredient remained in the recipe long after the hard times eased, just one more little thing about which, when you ask my mother why it is, she tells you that it is because it has always been. You can add all the butter and all the milk from all the cows who have ever been, and if you leave the secret ingredient out she will taste its absence, and I will, too, after all this time. I guess it does not speak to any great sophistication in our cuisine, but “it tastes good, I believe,” my mother says, “and ain’t that what we’re going for?” Besides, how do you erase something that was never written down in the first place?
* * *
• • •
In that long-ago kitchen, Ava watched, over his shoulder, as he stirred it in.
“That don’t seem like much of a secret ingredient,” she said.
She had expected something odd or rare, or whispered by the fairies.
He told her to get a fork and take a taste.
“Well,” she said, “yeah, that’s pretty good.”
Then she tasted the golden chicken gravy.
“Well, yeah, that’s pretty good, too.”
The chicken itself, though, was perfect, maybe even the best chicken she ever had.
It could be it really was just that good. It could be, knowing her, and knowing the chicken, she still held a grudge.
“It tastes better,” she liked to say, “if you was mad at it to start with.”
* * *
• • •
I asked my mother if she needed to have a bad feeling about a chicken, in the old days, before she prepared it for the pot. She said she knew the fates of chickens at the hands of other cooks, and knew that sometimes there was malice there, but her heart was too soft for her actually to do in a chicken with her own hands. She has gone a lifetime without killing anything except mosquitoes, flies, spiders, and a snake or two, which makes her a bad Buddhist but does not count off if you are a Congregational Holiness. She hired her killing done, bribing her children with the promise of baked, fried, stewed, and barbecued chicken, and we rushed into the yard with blood in our eyes. Ava would watch from the porch, rock, and nod. Now and then, she would just point, and, even in her frailty, play god of the barnyard.
Even though the chicken
may not be as good now as it was then, it is easier on the conscience, my mother believes. She is pretty sure that, staring into the cooler at the IGA, she had nothing against any of them.
· 6 ·
THE FOURTH BEAR
Cornmeal Porridge with Chicken and Watercress, Stewed Cabbage, Fried Apples
The oldest boy, James, with a wagonload of babies
1926
IT WAS a damn dicey time to be a chicken with an attitude.
“We’ll need one, a fat ’un if we can ketch one,” the old man said.
The girl came back in about twenty minutes with another rooster.
She’d had her eye on him.
“Now,” he told her, “I’ll l’arn you to make porridge.”
“Like in the story about them bears?” she asked.
“No,” he said, not altogether sure what bears had to do with anything; he had eaten bear as a boy, and it was loathsome, strong and oily with an essence of what seemed to be axle grease. Literature, and especially fairy tales, did not figure in the old man’s experiences. The last books in the Bundrum family had been left behind long ago, in Virginia, as the family drifted south during the previous century; even the name changed, as that literacy slid away, from the original Bondurant to Bundrum, as if it had been blurred or muddied somehow on a page soaked with corn whiskey.
But porridge had been in the family history forever, it seemed, on both sides of a wide, deep ocean; our people called it merely “broth,” because of the chicken stock that is its twentieth-century foundation. But its origins envelop just about everything. My European ancestors—French, English, Irish, German, Viking—lived on it, but flavored with pork fat or poached game. The Creek and Cherokee, who are just as much a part of our lineage as the Europeans, ate it flavored with squirrel and rabbit. My mother and her sisters made it, often, with quail, and even doves. But the best it ever was, my people believe, was with a good fat chicken—or, barring that, a tough and stringy one—and maybe a few aromatics to season it with.