Another of Pete's culinary adventures

Murray, a co-worker of Pete's, bought a bucket of mutton birds, a sort of Maori speciality.  He doled out a few to the more adventurous lab employees.  Pete, of course, was one of those.  Mutton bird.  Hmmm.  Just sounds dodgy, doesn't it?  Mutton is what they call an old lamb so that grosses me out to start with.  Then to think that it's like mutton but in bird form?  Not sure about that.  Anyway, Pete was very excited about it all and finally appeared home one day with this bird in hand.  It is actually preserved in a salted manner which means you have to soak it in water to dilute the saltiness.  With Murray's advice and a quick glance in 2 Maori cookbooks, it is decided that we will boil it for an hour changing the water 3 times and then stick it under the grill to crisp it up.  To tell you the truth it just looked like a small duck.  It smelt like something really foul and wrong, especially during the hour of boiling.  Then to the crisping up of the skin and voila, c'est fini.  As he fed this mutton bird to my children, I sat cringing.  They loved it.  Rita wanted a bone.  Pete declared it delicious.  I was horrified.  The meat was very dark and very fatty.  I'll leave it at that.  More culinary delights on the way....