Guinea fowl is very popular in France. All the supermarkets stock it, and many people raise a few in their backyard chicken run along with the other poultry. We like eating them - especially at Christmas.
This guinea fowl is a pintade fermière de Loué, 'raised in the open air' and certified Label Rouge (To see my explanation of Label Rouge go to my previous post about eggs.)To be able to make the claim that this is a farm raised guinea fowl from Loué, the bird must have come from a small farm located in a certain geographical area and been raised using traditional husbandry methods. You can read the full specifications for certification on the EurLex website (section 4 at the bottom of the page is the most interesting /relevant - and it's in English).
As you can see, we waited until farm raised Loué guinea fowl was on special, and particularly good value for money. Traditionally raised Loué poultry is famous throughout France, and the area it comes from is centred on the town of Loué, just west of Le Mans, and about 2½ hours north-westish of Preuilly-sur-Claise. The classification extends down to border cantons in Indre et Loire – so volaille de Loué is local produce for us.
Susan
5 comments:
The goddess Delia Smith has a particularly good recipe for 'pintade' roast with with about 25 cloves of garlic.
I also like them pot roasted. There's a good recipe in one of the Rick Stein books for pot roasted guinea fowl and puy lentils.
American friends of ours decided to pronounce "pintade" as "pterodactyl." We still call it that now.
Is that French style pronunciaton or American on the 'p'?
American, as in, silent "p."
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