My Wild Food Heroes

This couple will always be my wild food heroes.

Bow Hunt Giant Rats?

Morning all, hope you're not feeling too rough after yesterdays excesses, At the shindig I went to while the family were gathered round a copy of the saturday paper was being passed round to squeals of delight, it contained a review of the hilarious book [and website]  Awkward Family Pet Photos  needless to say this handsome beast was my favorite, although no family member was able to answer my questions:
What is it? Where can I Bowhunt it? What do they taste like?

I've loved hunting and eating squirrel's, Mr. Bojangles has reported on eating Rats in Senegal, could this be the next stop for the Rodant Carnivore?

Any pointers, and/or invitations gratefully received

Your pal
SBW

PS For news of the UK's Trophy Rats click here

The Other Foie Gras Controversy

 

Photographed by Holly A. Heyser. For more of her Foodie photography click HERE 

Having a bit of time to myself, and too battered to go out, I spent the time listing to This American Life podcasts. Where I heard this interesting story which sheds further light on our relationships with food animals. Which in turn reminded me of a post Hank Shaw wrote a year ago.

The received wisdom [AKA dogma] has it that Foie Gras 
is only man-made by Gavage the force feeding of Ducks and Geese

Foies Gras is probably the most contentious of foods; to some the ultimate delicacy, to some 'greasy meat paste', a 4,500 year old tradition, and the most unkind of animal husbandry.

The TAL story concerns Dan Barber a NYC based farmer, restaurateur and Foie Gras aficionado's discovery of Eduardo Sousa who raises 'free-range foies gras'.  Dan initially dismisses the story as the stuff of legend but later goes to Eduardo's to track down this seemingly contradictory delicacy.

On the farm he learns that when in their wild state Geese are a feast-and-famine eaters, accustomed to periods of famine; when the opportunity arises they will gorge themselves, eating and eating until the food stuff is gone, then flying on in search of the next opportunity. When Geese are stressed by environmental factors like the cold AND surrounded by food they really stuff it in. So far so plausible.

The received wisdom [AKA dogma] has it that Foie Gras is only man-made by Gavage - the force-feeding of grain soaked in fat to the birds, however by the wonder of the bloggerverse I beg to differ. A year back my wildfood hero, hunter and blogger Hank Shaw  posted the picture at the top of this post where he compares the livers of two Ducks he shot, one with steatosis after it had been gorging itself on rice in the paddy fields of northern California. Hank's theory is that with such an abundance of high-energy food, rice, the birds 'thrifty-gene' kicks in and the bird's metabolism switches to the 'store fat now' setting.

Doctors call the condition steatosis, in which liver cells accumulate lipids. I call it yummy.

Hank Shaw

Would it also be plausible to think that 4,500 years ago early foodies saw geese and ducks from the wild with engorged livers and thought to replicate the process in the farmyard?

Eduardo does everything he can to provide an endless supply of foods right across the range that Geese are attracted to. Grains, leaves, acorns, figs, and olives are made available - but never fed to - the Geese. He contends that Geese have had a lot of their wildness bred out of them, and with it much of the feast-and-famine-eater instinct. Any and all human contact signals that food will be provided, even fencing acts to re enforce this now inbred expectation. The stuff-yer-face-coz-ya-don't-know-where-yer-next-meal's-coming-from stress response is now much less acute. Just as the dogs of today are a fair way off the African wild dogs or Australian Dingos 4,500+ is a lot of generations of geese. It would be more remarkable if they hadn't adapted to human husbandry. In Eduardo's non-contact farming the geese act like wild Geese, not being so hemmed in by a fence or protected from the elements by a shed when it gets cold they eat everything in sight just like wild geese landing on a sweet food source would.

To Dan Barber the principles he see's at Eduardo's farm la Pateria become a cipher for the way he'd like to see farming engage with naturally occurring proceses.

You can hear the This American Life podcast HERE it's the last story in the episode

Dan Barber tells his story at TED talks HERE he's very witty, you'll like it

Eduardo Sousa's website is HERE

Read Hank's post HERE with links to the research and recipes

With the Scottish Goose season still in full-flight I'm hoping to get some samples myself.

Thanks for reading, you have no idea how much your comments and page views mean to me.
More soon
SBW

Roadkill: It's A Free Meal (For Two)

Saw this one in the paper the other morning and thought of you dear reader. Jeweller and mum-to-be Alison Brierley 39 [ish] of Harrogate in Yorkshire got herself in the paper with tales of cravings for roadkill.

"now I'm pregnant I get strong cravings for roadkill,' explaines Brierley. 'It's more gamey than other meat and I love the taste. I also don't have to feel guilty about eating it because I know it's had a completely free range and natural life.'

She tells how she's chowed down on: hare, deer, pigeon, rabbit and owls, obviously at this time of year pheasants being abundant. 'I would like to try fox and badger but they're never in good enough condition to eat; although I have used them for my artwork.’ said Brierley.

She's hosted roadkill dinner parties for friends.
"They trust me and they know I'm a good cook so I think they love it. I get the best meat from friends who ring me up to tell me about a kill they've spotted on their way to work"

‘One of the big reasons for being public about this is that I want to raise awareness about where food actually comes from’, said Alison. ‘Some people are so blasé about picking their food off a supermarket shelf without giving a thought to how it lived or how it was killed.’

Read more: 

Giving food for thought to food faddists, yummy mummies, and other whingers. Well played Alison. 

More soon
SBW

The Wild Gourmets Book Review

I quite liked the first series of the TV show and watched a couple of the second series but it didn’t really capture my imagination. So when MCP gave me 'The Wild Gourmets: Adventures in food and freedom' for Crimbo I was intrigued. The authors have managed to pull off the difficult trick of showing hunting in a positive light on mainstream TV. The show is aimed at a foodie audience who, while liking the idea of wild food, may still have some trepidation about up-close-and-personal knowledge of their dinner’s demise.

Guy Grieve is a good deal more interesting a character than the series lets on. Bored of his desk-jockey life at the The Scotsman newspaper; he actually did what so many of us occasionally dream of doing and de-camped to Alaska to live in a self built cabin for a year. I know he’s Scottish and they’re tougher up there, but it’s still no small achievement. You can read more about his adventure here.

Tommi was a former winner of ‘Masterchef’ a TV show with a self explanatory title.

Where ‘Tommi’ shines is that she shows just how frikkin’ easy it is to cook nice food over burning wood. I’ve never believed that campfire cooking should automatically be burned around the edges. She makes some really nice looking food and clearly has a sense of adventure with ingredients.

All great cooking TV has to be to succeed is to show the audience how small the step beyond their comfort zone is, and then entice them to take the step with pictures of the result and the cook being praised for the result. She makes a good fist of it.

Most TV cooks in the UK have used ‘Chocolate and Chilli’ as a cipher for adventure, the mindset that chocolate is always served as a sweet food is so completely ingrained in UK food culture that even when it’s become a cliché of foodie TV it’s still able to elicit a fission of excitement and squeals of unexpected delight at the dinner table. Here’s Tommi’s take on Venison and Chocolate. Feeds 10

Ingredients
2kg shoulder or haunch of venison
olive oil, for browning
2 medium onions, diced
2 carrots, diced
5 celery stalks, diced
2 parsnips, diced
5 garlic cloves, chopped
2 dried chillies, crumbled
500ml game stock (or stock made from bouillon cubes)
½ bottle full-bodied red wine
100g dark chocolate, finely grated or chopped
1 tablespoon redcurrant jelly
For the marinade
1 bottle full-bodied red wine
4 garlic cloves
1 sprig of rosemary
4–5 sprigs of thyme
2 fresh red chillies, deseeded and finely chopped
3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
10 juniper berries, crushed
salt and pepper
Method: 

How to make venison braised with chilli and chocolate
1. Make sure your fire has lots of hot embers (or preheat an oven to 190°C/gas 5).

2. Cut the venison into 2.5cm cubes, removing large bits of fat or gristle. Put these into a double-layered plastic bag, along with all the marinade ingredients. Set aside for a day in a cool spot in the river (or in the fridge if you have taken your quarry home), turning every so often so that all of the meat comes into contact with the marinade.

3. When you are ready to cook, remove the venison from the marinade, setting the marinade aside for later.

4. Heat a large casserole over a high heat until it is smoking hot. Pour in a tablespoon of olive oil and when it is very hot add the venison cubes, 6 or 7 at a time, so that you are not overcrowding the pan and thus bringing down the temperature of the oil.

5. Brown the meat on all sides for 1–2 minutes, letting the pan get hot again between each batch and adding more oil if necessary.

6. When the meat is all browned, set it aside while you brown the vegetables.

7. Add a tablespoon of oil to the casserole and sweat the onions for 5 minutes before adding the carrots, celery and parsnips. Cook for a further 10 minutes, allowing the vegetables to start caramelising without letting them burn. Add the garlic and cook for another 5 minutes.

8. Return the venison to the casserole, along with the reserved marinade and the rest of the ingredients. Bring up to a gentle simmer, stirring to melt the chocolate into the sauce. Cook in the Dutch oven (or preheated oven) for about 90 minutes or until the meat is tender and falling apart.

lf you're a regular reader  I think you’ll quite like this book as a read, and find the recipes easy to follow and delicious to eat. If you’re looking to expand someone’s foodie horizons I think you’ll find its the perfect gift.

I’m still waiting for our friends, those bon viveurs afield, NorCal and HAGC to hit our screens. 
I can see it now ‘She Kills it & He Grills It - The Holly & Hank Show’.

Your Pal

SBW

Talking Bollocks And Eating Testicles

A while back I used to go to a butchers shop owned by a man who was both a born-again-Christian and a Chelsea fan. Two subjects that were always to hand in his conversational arsenal. We enjoyed a fairly lively  banter over the Gloustershire Old-Spot sausages.

Bushwacker Jr. and I had taken up his entreaty to 'try crocodile - it's weird' and it was - not like chicken at all - actually a lot like Conger Eel. We also tried Kuhdu from his african range - very lean - deer-like but more irony if that makes any sense at all. I knew from previous visits that he liked to have pre-prepared banter, witticisms that he'd worked up on other customers, so one afternoon I thought I'd try some of my material on him. I strode into the shop, the door bell announcing my arrival, as the smile of recognition broke across his face i hit him right between the eyes with this one.

SBW: This Time [pause for dramatic effect] I'm Talking Bollocks!

Butcher: LOL 'I may have some [dramatic pause of his own] that you can take away with you'......

For readers overseas: While bollocks [or bollox] are testicles there are other meanings too.

Your bollocks/his Bollocks - testicles
Oh bollocks - distress or dissatisfaction
Some Bollocks - information of dubious veracity
Talking bollocks - a purveyor of erroneous or un wanted information
The Bollocks - the best, a perfect example
A bollocking - a telling off - usually delivered at some considerable volume


And in Eire 'You bollocks' - a stupid person

........Wiping the tears from his eyes he rummaged in the bottom of one of his freezers and produced half a pair "you can have it - just let me know how you cooked it"

I steamed it whole, peeled off the outer membrane, sliced, coated it in breadcrumbs deep fried it and served the 'nuggets' with a sweet chili sauce. Yummy. You know what? They're good, really good. So I was delighted to read that Kristeva, regular commenter on this blog, who writes the excellent Howling Duck Ranch had been on an unusual date.

More soon
Your pal
SBW

PS: Legend has it that the Spartans were great believers in eating Sheep's bollocks - reputed to contain a generous dose of a steroid now totally illegal in modern Olympic competition.

Looking And Seeing

Well-who-duh-thunk-it!!

Maybe I was a little pessimistic about my suburban smallholding skills?
Maybe I 'looked' without 'seeing'?
Maybe cucumbers just grow very very quickly?

There are two more fat qukes!!!!

Cucumber sandwiches for tea.

Yours delightedly
SBW
PS In between writing this post and taking the picture, two more have appeared. One of them is already half the size of these. It proves something - I'm just not sure what?

Pride Of The Sarf

I was at the end of the garden wondering whether it was time to give up my 'fruitless' gardening and start using the space for fires again when I was shocked, surprised and delighted to see that I had actually grown more than slug food this summer. Yes! A real life actual cucumber! Well who'd-a-thought-it!

On the other side of the hill the trees are heaving with unripe Chestnuts, so maybe I'm more a forager than a farmer.

Cheers
SBW

PS No Rex, I haven't forgotten, they're just aren't any worthy examples to send you yet.

UnBoxing - Light My Fire Lunchbox

The days have dragged by but my new designer lunch boxes have finally made their way to me. I was going to get us all the same colour, then I found the Dan from JRE industries had a whole mix of colours, but not enough for eight of one colour, he also told me he had one set in pink.
TLB (my daughter The Littlest Bushwacker) has already been asking for a pink Spork so knowing how important 'style' is to any trip outside, I had to order it for her.

First thoughts
They look bigger in the pictures, but I've anecdotal evidence that having bigger plates makes people (OK me) have bigger dinners, so maybe that's no bad thing.

The design is way cool - after you've scarfed your lunch all the bits disappear back into the big box so you've less clutter to take home

The main box is a reasonable size and depth for eating wet foods, and its lid has quite a lip to it so it will make a practical outdoor plate.

The little pot is a little pot.

The chopping board-colander hybrid is a really good innovation, with just kettle water i can now prepare noodles at work! Afield it means i can rinse blackberries and other gatherings. Best of all i now have somewhere safe to slice things, slicing has been the death of many a plastic plate and the lid of the occasional Tupperware box.

The plastic cup with lid - is, well, a plastic cup with a lid. Handy.

The Spork - despite Pablos Spork anxiety inducing comments the Spork is still a convenient way to cuttle whilst out and about


The true test of any lunchbox - does an oil and vinegar dressing leak out of it?

Is it really 'dishwasher proof' as Light My Fire claim?

This has been an UnBoxing review, only time will tell..........

Thanks for reading
SBW