Quality will keep birds on the menu

Feathered game have from time immemorial given gratification to the palate of man,” began Mrs Beeton in her 1861 Book of Household Management. The chapter on cookery assures us that the eating of game has a noble pedigree, stretching back to Moses and beyond.

She lists fine instructions for the preparation of delicacies such as bustard, bittern and corncrake. Game was the height of sophistication, favoured by lords of the manor and “so many persons of great wealth who have not otherwise the means of procuring game”. The latter — those who don’t own land, but rather have to pay princely sums to secure their game meat — were responsible for encouraging poaching, according to Mrs Beeton.

The commercial poaching of pheasants and partridges was a serious business, from before the Victorian era right up until the 1980s. Browsing the court circulars of our local Suffolk newspaper, a regular autumnal feature of the 1970s