Girlfriend's mum did a chicken in the slow-cooker a month or so ago, and since she doesn't eat soup, I asked if I could have the remains of the bird with which to make DELICIOUS STOCK.
Today is stock day. After simmering in the pot for....most of the afternoon and all evening, I picked the long bones out, cracked them with a sharp heavy knife, which was difficult, and gave them a good scrape and then tossed them in again to make the soup full of delicious, delicious marrow. It was a sort of a stark moment for me, realizing how very visceral the process of obtaining and making food is. Just a pile of wet bones on a cutting board, and me. If I had any reservations about eating animals, this probably would have been the moment to quibble, put them aside, throw them away and move on with adding veg to the stockpot.
But dammit, this was an organic free-range bird, and it had lived about as good a life as could be had, barring an actual family farm, but that kind of meat is outside both my budget and Girlfriend's mum's, so this was as good as it was going to get.
And I would not sit idly by and let that bird's sacrifice go by without using every last bit of it that I could, so with a full heart and a clear conscience I cracked them chicken bones and I will have marrow in my soup.
Also I added some onions and garlic.
Now the stock is sitting on the counter, cooling before I freeze the hell out of it and clarify it tomorrow. Exciting!
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