Poultry & Game

Free-range chickens are among the nicest things we can think of to eat. Before dreaded battery farms came on the scene, chickens were expensive and a real treat. Then they got literally tainted with fish meal and the grotesquely cruel conditions in which they were - and still are - raised. They got cheaper and cheaper, and nastier and nastier. Today we are becoming more aware of the difference in flavour and texture between a free-range chicken - allowed space, some daylight and the opportunity to graze on worms and insects - and one raised on horrible things and denied access to the open air. This is not imagination or emotive and liberal nonsense, but based on objective comparisons by food scientists. You can literally taste the difference; and if you cannot, then perhaps cooking is not really your métier. Supermarkets are pretty evasive on the subject of what precisely defines a free-range chicken but, even if what they sell under that name are not quite what a French shop would sell as a poulet label rouge or a poulet de Bresse, they are not half bad and will provide you with all you need to cook the recipes that follow.