What are you doing for Christmas this year?

[Peripatetic Phil]

Well, I cooked another guinea fowl today, which I shared with my wife and An, a new member of our management team.  An, who has just arrived from Viet Nam, enjoyed it [1], but said that for him it was no different to chicken.  LK and I enjoyed it (as always) and for us it was clearly different to chicken — more tender, more flavoursome, more succulent.  On this occasion I did not bother to cook it back-down for the first 40 minutes — rather, it had 40 minutes at 160^oC breast-up, completely covered in smoked streaky bacon in a rectangular cast-iron casserole dish with the lid on, then 40 minutes with the lid off (otherwise no change), then 15 minutes with the bacon removed and finally a further 15 minutes with the temperature raised to 220^oC.  Cooked to perfection, so I shall not bother with the back-down phase again.

[1] He was, however, singularly unimpressed by the Christmas pudding, just as he had been by the mince pies.  But then he likes congee, which I detest ...
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** Phil.

[George]

Well, I cooked another guinea fowl today

Where do you get your guinea fowl? Perhaps you know where to buy superior birds to those found at Tesco.

[livo]

I wouldn't worry about it George. Even Phil's guest said it was just like chicken.  Buy chicken and be done with it.  It's cheaper and it also tastes like chicken.

[Peripatetic Phil]

Well, I cooked another guinea fowl today

Where do you get your guinea fowl? Perhaps you know where to buy superior birds to those found at Tesco.

Waitrose, George — the more recent was 1,45kg, the Christmas one 1,6kg.  Highly recommended !
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** Phil.

[George]

I wouldn't worry about it George. Even Phil's guest said it was just like chicken.  Buy chicken and be done with it.  It's cheaper and it also tastes like chicken.

I am not worried but mystified at how 4 people can have such different opinions on how guinea fowl tastes. It's like Phil and his wife seem to love guinea fowl and feel it's worth a price something like 4x more expensive than a cheap chicken.  But their new recruit and myself take a view that it is so close to chicken it's not worth paying a penny more. I am tempted to get another one from Waitrose but, even if I tried to cook it just like Phil does, I doubt if it would change my opinion. Has anyone else reading this, ever tried guinea fowl?

[Peripatetic Phil]

I am not worried but mystified at how 4 people can have such different opinions on how guinea fowl tastes. It's like Phil and his wife seem to love guinea fowl and feel it's worth a price something like 4x more expensive than a cheap chicken. 

Well, let me be honest, I wouldn't buy a "cheap chicken" on principle.  Cheap chickens are rarely if ever free-range, and that is something that I insist on, primarily because I believe that battery hens are an abomination (the avian/galliform equivalent of WW II concentration camps), but also because they lack flavour.  The best chicken broth I have ever experienced was in a farmhouse on an island somewhere near Shanghai, and when I asked how they achieved such an incredible depth of flavour, I was told that their birds are rarely if ever slaughtered at younger than three years of age.
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** Phil.

[George]

Well, let me be honest, I wouldn't buy a "cheap chicken"...they lack flavour.

I know we are past the point of needing to agree to disagree. I buy the cheapest possible chickens and portions from Lidl and Aldi. They have more than enough flavour for me. As I found, the guinea fowl from Tesco was almost identical to the chicken, which means it had more than enough flavour, too. So why pay 4x more for a guinea fowl at Tesco or 5x more at Waitrose? Most reviews at Waitrose are along the lines of your findings. I wonder if they believe too strongly in the saying that you get what you pay for. As I also said, our taste discrepancies are hard to reconcile.

[Peripatetic Phil]

I buy the cheapest possible chickens and portions from Lidl and Aldi.

So would it fair to conclude that you are not particularly concerned with hens' welfare, regarding them purely as food rather than as (once) sentient living creatures ?  And would you therefore also eat veal, and poussins, and suckling pig, and lobsters or crabs boiled alive ?
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** Phil.

[Garp]

I've never tried guinea fowl, Phil, but I quite fancy it.

May I just ask about the cooking time, because that seems quite long.

[Peripatetic Phil]

Just followed the instructions on the (Waitrose) packaging, Garp.  They quoted only two options, one for birds < 1,25kg and one for 1,25 kg <= bird <= 1,6 kg; both of mine were in the upper range, so those were the times I used.  But 160^oC is quite cool as oven temperatures go, so I don't think the time is excessive, and both birds were cooked to perfection.
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** Phil.