Haunch cuisine

Having spent the past 10 years or so flying the pheasant flag – not only because I love the meat but, more importantly, because having a demand for the by-product of our sport is our strongest form of defence against those who wish to defile it – it feels strange now to feel the need to be extolling the virtues of a meat that, during that time, has been the largest success story of the wild meats.

But I fear we are heading for troubled times on the wild deer front. In short, there has been a cataclysmic demise in demand for venison due to the restrictions placed on the hospitality sector – wild venison’s greatest ally. With supermarkets demanding the consistency that more closely monitored and food-rationed farmed or parkland deer can offer, along with the tight hygiene regulations and volume dependability of the more commercial processing units, pubs, restaurants and caterers have long been the mainstay of both game dealers and accredited local stalkers for wild meat.

With that gone, much of the incentive for those in charge of controlling populations to do so was taken away, not to mention the fact many part-time stalkers were not able to get out during the various early lockdowns. Around last autumn this started to become apparent to me as a chef, as I was being offered whole