Meat, Poultry and Game

Appears in

The Independent Cook: Strategies for Seasonal Cooking

Published 1988

About

Just as grouse and snipe were beginning to think we only wanted them for their minds, they learn that it was their bodies we desired all along. The ‘glorious twelfth’ has, over the last few years, attracted as much rah-rah ballyhoo as the Beaujolais race. Helicopters descend to the lawns of Home County hostelries full of ruddy-cheeked chaps bearing braces still warm from the moors. London restaurants search freezers for last year’s cryogenised survivors.

Some commentators protest that game birds are never worth eating until they have been hung for a while (complete with guts, in the case of snipe). Others hold that while this is certainly true for more mature birds, there is a special subtlety in a young bird, roasted rare a few hours after shooting. Whatever your view, nothing can beat the traditional accompaniments of bread sauce and tart currant jelly.