Roadkill

Roadkill has, it seems, become a fashionable subject of interest. It means that whatever you run over in a car, or find in the road, you do not leave it there but recover it, take it home if edible, prepare and eat it. This is food for free and the hygienic clearing up of mess.

            That is all right in the country where you might have unfortunately struck a pheasant, rabbit, duck, chicken or hare. But it is not everyone who would, or even be able to take advantage of it.

            Presumably one might leave a badger where it lay, and a deer would be a bit bulky to be put into the boot of a car, should you have been lucky enough to have survived the crash.

            It is different in town.

            The animals in question are foxes, cats and dogs – hardly edible, any of them. A single feral pigeon would barely be worth recovering, even if it hadn't been pressed flat already.

            James May’s internationally famous cat, Fusker, with whom I had a considerable tussle, suffered from roadkill at the end of our street. Despite wearing an identity collar, he was probably dumped in a rubbish bin, and certainly not eaten.

            So one doesn't expect to be coming across much edible roadkill in London.

            Well, it so happened that when walking on a Chiswick pavement recently, a cucumber lay in my path. “Roadkill,” say I, and picked it up, displaying it in my hand as I proceeded, should its rightful owner appear and ask for it back. No one did.

            So I shared the roadkill with my sister, and have just consumed my half of it, cubed and mixed with the flesh of an avocado, all coated with a vinegary vinaigrette. – first class London roadkill I would say.

            I felt quite in vogue with my action, and fully up to date with present-day mores.