Reflections of Sunflowers Read Online Free PDF Page B

mother and is only given a supplement of cereal to augment the mother’s milk. This calf provides the family with veal for the next year. Now, apparently, she had just been told that the latest regulations meant that after slaughter, the abattoir would return to her neither the brains, the intestines or the sweet breads; all the specially prized delicacies which she loves to cook and for which she has many special recipes.
    ‘
Même pas pour la consommation familiale!
’ she cried indignantly. There was a gleam in her eye, which suggested that she intended to find a way round this next year.
    A few days later the carcasse of her special calf came back from the slaughterer and we went down to watch it expertly butchered by Robert, Grandma’s cousin. In his long life he has been both a butcher andan
inséminateur
, and now, in his busy retirement, he is an enthusiastic beekeeper. He drives an old Post Office van, which has been repainted with
VIVEZ MIEUX! MANGEZ DU MIEL!
in large letters on the side. On market days he chauffeurs the little bus, which takes the old folk from his village to market. Today he was
le boucher
.
    The operation was to take place in Grandma’s kitchen where, so long ago, I sat to pluck my first and only duck. I can clearly remember the weight and the scent of its still-warm body on my lap, and the quiet amusement of Claudette and her mother at my squeamishness. Today, for the calf, the kitchen is all prepared. The long table is covered with scrubbed oil-cloth, another smaller wooden table placed at right angles. Already at the far end of the table lies the pallid head of the calf, the long-lashed eyes closed, the pale, thick, protruding tongue curved upward.
    Robert greets us. Almost eighty now, his great jowls a little slacker, his sturdy frame just a little lighter, his eyes are still as bright as ever behind his small, round spectacles. He sharpens his knives with a flourish, his one-shouldered butcher’s apron securely tied and reaching almost to his ankles. He places the knives precisely then goes outside to help Raymond. Together they stagger back in with the half-carcass. It seemed a small animal when alive; dead, even half of it seems enormous. And after all the bureaucratic fuss about brains and sweet breads and intestines I am astonishedto see the gleaming spinal cord, considered in England a possible source of BSE, running the length of the body. Claudette dismissed my enquiry with a ‘
Pouff
’ – there were more important things on hand.
    As Robert deftly chopped and sliced, each cut of palest pink meat had to be carefully wrapped in tough yellow plastic bags for the
congélateur
; first
le filet
, then
les côtelettes
, followed by the tougher cuts for
pot au feu
.
    ‘And don’t forget to make me a little slit in each piece,’ she insisted. ‘To put in my
farce
.’ She makes her stuffing with bread, egg and garlic. Robert’s mobile eyebrows twitched but he obliged, using the tip of his knife with extreme delicacy. As each section of the calf was cut up the possible dishes were discussed that could be concocted from ‘
une bonne escalope, un jarret de veau, une demie épaule
’.
    ‘Could you not roast a half-shoulder as you might with a lamb?’ I enquired. They considered momentarily then shook their heads. ‘
C’est meilleur en casserole avec des petits légumes
,’ they agreed.
    Robert too, was bemused by the English reaction to
la fièvre aphteuse
, the foot and mouth.
    ‘I remember ’46 and ’47,’ he said. ‘
C’était l’épidemie mais
,’ his eyebrows shot up. ‘One or two might be infected. They might even lose a toenail – that was the worst –
mais…jamais le reste du cheptel l’attrapait. Jamais!
Never the rest of the herd.’
    ‘Just what I told them,’ agreed Raymond.
    Robert tapped his nose. ‘
C’était un complot, un complot des marchands
,’ – a plot by the wholesalers, he said, darkly. ‘
Il y a trop de viande dans les grands