On the basis that my husband once shot a guinea fowl by mistake, and on the basis too that you can shoot them in Africa, let’s call these birds ‘game’. The landowner, in my husband’s case, who had mixed in a few guinea fowl with his pheasants, was not thrilled. To take his mind off it, my husband popped the corpse into the boot of the car and brought the poor thing home. Dressed and oven-ready, it did not go to waste.
We ought to rear more of these African-origin birds in Britain. Their wild ancestors (Numida meleagris) are related to pheasants, turkeys and partridges, and the meat on the domesticated birds has a flavour of all three.
I first ate guinea fowl in France, home to my grandmother, where…
