Field to table, nose to tail. We journey to the middle of nowhere to meet the ebullient, down-to-earth, hands-on farmer who produces her poultry, from start to slaughter, the humane way.
Vanessa’s chickens and Vanessa’s ducks are on the menu at some of the best establishments in and around Durban.
Who would have thought that watching chickens have their throats cut by a guillotine-like device would whet my appetite and have me fantasizing about farmer Vanessa Collocott’s birds?
Their lifeless bodies submerged in boiling water, their feathers extracted by a whirling plucking machine.
Their generous naked broiler-bods methodically, expertly and individually surgically slit, their innards extracted, the good bits cleaned and washed (did you know the only way to tell if a chicken truly is free-range is to look in the contents of the stomach for grass, which you will seldom find in those purported to be, simply because few are), their heads and feet severed and transmogrified into walkie-talkies.
She had threatened to collect me by tractor when I met her at Jackie Cameron’s School of Food & Wine graduation a couple of weeks earlier. I asked her then if I might visit, intrigued by “Vanessa’s chicken” and “Vanessa’s duck”, on the menu at Chef Johannes Richter’s The LivingRoom. He’s been voted South Africa’s top chef, in case you’re wondering.
Instead of the tractor, she arrives in a rugged 4X4 truck, all smiles and laughter, a ragged white pooch called Flea on her lap, head stuck out the window.
When we break for coffee and lunch on the porch later in the day — chicken sandwiches made from leftover bits cut during deboning, flatties being something new they’ve added — Gerald the marmalade cat rubs and prods from atop the lunch table, looking for love.
Sharing the table-top space with Flea, the elderly white Maltese-type pooch that goes everywhere with Vanessa. While the bigger dogs laze and bound, she tells me that Gerald, this seemingly sweet affectionate being, knocked off five ducklings the previous week. Gerald the predatory cat. They’ve learned to make their duckling enclosure Gerald-proof, because “Gerald-proof means it’s everything-proof.”
The Blue Orange Farm was named kind of randomly, in case you’re wondering:
“It’s pretty much a play on words. Quirky. People remember it, blue and orange both being colours but you don’t get blue oranges. And there may have been a bit of wine involved in the decision-making…” Vanessa tells me when, while writing this piece, I get back to her and ask her.
Thinking back to the sunshine, the smells, the sounds and the mellowness… That chicken sandwich we had for lunch. It truly did taste good.
Read the full article in Daily Maverick TGIF here: Field to table, nose to tail — why these KZN birds take the plate
