Perhaps it wasn’t as big a weekly event as I had imagined. I could smell the fried chicken as soon as I entered the supermarket but had to do several laps around the aisles before eventually finding the bain marie squirrelled away at a far end of the fridge section. It was full of chicken and french fries. I put my headphones on and turned the audio recorder on, waiting for willing participants to share their excitement of said fried chicken. The first few people denied any knowledge of English language. Perhaps I was asking the wrong question. Perhaps the chicken event wasn’t quite the weekly highlight on the local calendar. I did interview a few people who weren’t as excited as I wanted them to be. Yeah, they liked it but it wasn’t as though they came every week, maybe once or twice a month. The nice supermarket manager who had helped me with photocopying yesterday offered me a piece but I had to decline due to vegetarianism. It was a rare moment that I regretted not eating the flesh but it did kind of small delicious. I found another local artist who told me she was roasting a chicken in lieu of the fried option. She said she did buy the fried type but only a few times a year.

On documentary ‘truth’
So, this story reminds me of what it is to make documentaries and how a story might be presented as over inflated and dramatised, or conveyed with a sense of integrity to how it is actually observed. The former might be exciting and dramatic but it would also be ridiculous and condescending to portray the selling of fried chicken at the supermarket as the most exciting thing to happen all week.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
A chicken buyer helps himself to the fries. He gets about 6 pieces for the family and the breast is the favourite!

 

In other documentary discoveries: is this a young male pastime in the snow, or is it, as suggested, a dog’s doing? Again, which story does the listener want?