One of the strange differences between our naming of live animals and their meat (Pigs/pork, Cows/ beef, Calfs/ veal, Deer / venison) is that we insist on calling what we would clearly call hens in the coop, chicken, when we put them on the table.

I have frequently come across older recipes which called for boiling fowl in their make up, clearly these are looking for a meat which won’t grill or fry and requires some stewing to make it palatable.
We had hens at home and even though we would often eat them roast, some I clearly remember were boiled for a long period and served with parsley sauce.
I also remember that these tasted particularly good.

Last saturday we went to the organic farmers market in Beziers.
There the chicken man, from whom we have bought delicious chickens, had on his counter a more mature speciman labelled a Vielle Poule, or Old Hen.
I asked him would this be a suitable candidate for making into a Coq au Vin and he agreed enthusiastically.
It cost me about €8, not cheap for a chicken but about half the price of this mans organic free range youngsters of the same size.

Yesterday I gave him the full Coq au Vin treatment, long slow cooking in reduced red wine, barely simmering in a very low oven, garnished with crisp chunks of streaky bacon, shallots and mushrooms, and scented with garlic, bay leaves and thyme.

I let the old lady simmer slowly in the oven at 140C while we went shopping for the afternoon and the reward was the most beautiful smell which filled the house when we got home.
This was a definite reminder of my childhood, a scent which our modern conception of chicken has left behind.

After that I would love to report that new culinary heights were also reached in the eating.
In fact the legs were excellent, succulent and moist. The skin strangely was tough and the breasts were perfectly edible but very dense and dry.
The best part of the dish was the strongly aromatic sauce which was full of flavour and quite delicious and really permiated the rice which we ate with it.

I now want to buy another and make a Poule au Pot, the Irish Stew of the French peasant.