Pheasants abound in the bamboo jungles and are of many varieties—blood pheasants, white pheasants, Lady Amheists, Tibetan white-eared, impeyans, tragopans. My larder was never without dozens of these extravagant birds, including partridge, but by far the most plentiful were the beautiful tragopans. The plumage of the male is a scintillating symphony of color, orange and gold speckled with brown and black, and then generously dusted with silver, star-like markings. The hens, by comparison, are modest little birds with brown coats, but possessed of a valiant spirit.
Sometimes the hunters carried them in by the dozen packed in bamboo baskets, but at other times they brought them in alive tied up in empty corn meal bags. Wang made a pen for them near the kitchen, where he kept them well fed and watered until needed for the pot.
As they were usually brought in in pairs, it was interesting to watch the pride with which the brilliant male stood over the little female, guarding her, with a belligerent ruffling of feathers for anyone who approached, while she crouched at his feet. But the “female of the species” always survived longer than the male; for several times when I went to look at them in the morning, the male lay dead beside the said little hen. Wang explained that the male's pride was so great that he died of shame in captivity, leaving a bereft wife who seemed to be able “to take it.” After that, I gave instructions never to bring them in alive.
In spite of the fact that I watched Wang dozens of times in his preparation of pheasants, I am sure I could not duplicate any of the ways in which he served them … not even if I could get the birds in New York, and had the finest of kitchens and equipment with which to work. And Wang had only two small covered pots and an open fire to manage his culinary masterpieces, for the little oven was not big enough to hold a pheasant.
One of his methods was to brown the whole bird very carefully in hot fat, add a very small amount of water, and leave it nearly all day over the very slow charcoal fire. At intervals he basted it with a mixture of rice wine, soya sauce, and a hot, red pepper condiment, but how the bird ever acquired that shiny, lacquered look with the skin oven-crisp by dinner time, I never knew.
Another way of serving was to cut the cold breast of pheasant into fine, thin strips which he added to lobo and beitsai which had been lightly fried in hot fat so that they did not lose their crispness; then he seasoned the whole with soya sauce and sprinkled it with chopped walnuts. Or he varied this procedure by using, with boiled chestnuts, whatever bit of vegetable he might have on hand at the moment.
When Wang served food in his own way, he called it “Chinee speakin’ chow;” when he served me a whole pheasant with corn meal bread, he called it “Englis’ speakin’ chow,” which was, to say the least, imaginative, and might be almost any way.
As winter progressed in the lamasery, I sorely missed fresh food, for there was no fruit of any kind and vegetables were limited. Although the latitude of that country is subtropical, the altitude of the mountains makes green vegetation the year ’round impossible. I began to long for the luscious tangerines and fruit that grew on the plains about five days’ journey away. So Wang and I consulted, and decided to send two of the hunters on the ten-day journey.
Besides the fruit for me, there were a couple of things that Wang wanted … to send messages to his family, and a few to send messages to his family, and a few odds and ends of shopping that would be possible in the plains village. He suggested, too, that we might not have made sufficient joss to the gods of the mountains for the success of the expedition, and he thought it would be wise to buy in the little town of Kwanhsien a certain kind of red cock to sacrifice to them. Also wine for libations to the gods of the earth, and, of course, plenty of incense and paper money, all of which I agreed to as being very wise.
In those days of the hunters’ absence, I believe that my mind dwelt unduly upon the thought of a luscious fresh tangerine and other delicacies that they might have found, and it was with disappointment that the tenth day went by and they did not return.
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