@Britesea At my previous house the travellers used to bring me chickens! I'd love to keep some pigs again, but since I'm in a village with close neighbours, I'm going to wait with that for now.
Hmm, good thought, but I think they'd cook ME if I did anything to those birds! lol They're all game fowl and some are really nice. They dropped off some, came back to get some back, let me pick out some that I wanted to keep in return for board and feed… I'm not sure how the heck we came to that arrangement, but I got some lovely birds out of the deal, so I was quite happy. Even more so when they gave me two incubators and a small, but very sturdy coop.
Well, if you are ever interested in trying it, she stuffed the bird with lemons and fresh herbs, mixed more fresh herbs and salt into butter and rubbed on the outside of the bird, and then she cooked it in a Romertopf clay cooker (the gypsies just slathered clay on from the river and baked it, then peeled the clay off). This was one of her signature dishes, and when she wrote the directions down, it started with "First, sneak into the neighbor's yard and steal a chicken..."
This reminds me of the Bushman from South Africa/Namibia. I read when they cooked Guinea fowl, they smothered the bird in clay/mud and bake it in the fire. Once cooked, they'd gently tap the clay/mud cover so it cracks open and they can remove it, leaving the bird cleaned from it's feathers and perfectly cooked.