The art of "plucking the poultry"
Courting in the South of Spain
In Spain, the above scene is tradionally known as pelar la pava (lit. to pluck a turkey), an expression referring to the conversation between a man and a woman, separated by the window grille where the young woman looks out. It comes from the late 19th and early 20th centuries and is reminiscent of Andalucian customs.
The origins of the phrase are slightly disputed, with Sevillian folklorist Luis Montoto saying the story follows that of a lady who requests that her maid help with dinner by preparing the turkey for cooking. The maid either goes to the window or a balcony to carry out the task and it’s there that a young man courts her. When she takes longer than expected and is called from the other side of the house, she replies estoy pelando la pava! [1, 2]. Yet another explanation goes as follows:
Baron Davillier, in Viaje por España, compares the pose of a man holding a guitar to that of somebody plucking poultry [2].
Today, young people use the phrase in an altogether different manner: to express idleness, wasting time or doing nothing special. I suppose one could say that in the old days they perfected the art of doing nothing (chatting at the window) while also knowing how to make it special. These days, the “turkey” is store-bought and scarfed down, stripped of the slow cook, the basting, the herbs & aromatics that once made it something special.
As the saying goes, “traditions are the solutions to problems we’ve forgotten we had.” And yet, once the lesson is lost, the ritual disappears - leaving us without the romance, the anticipation, and the slow, deliberate dance that made even idleness feel meaningful.
Sources
1 - ¿Cuál es el origen de la expresión ‘Pelar la pava’?
2 - Courting (Pelando la pava)