Hunting one's food (a positive story)

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Aughnanure
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Hunting one's food (a positive story)

Post by Aughnanure » Thu Jul 29, 2010 5:49 pm

Rather long but a good read and, for once, something positive from the SMH.

RICHARD CORNISH July 27, 2010 Sydney Morning Herald - a NSW Sydney City newspaper.

'ON TOP of an old volcano, out west near Ballarat, a cluster of men hovers
over hot coals, watching a score of quail sizzle on a grill.

It is late morning and the birds were shot a few hours earlier as the sun
crept over cold, frosty fields.
Legs tired from silent stalking across barley stubble fields, gun dog
pointing the way, we sit around the fire, watching the birds cook slowly.
Chef and owner of city restaurant Sarti and part-time hunter Riccardo
Momesso turns the quail with tongs, the juices falling on to coals that
envelops them in meat-scented steam. A friend, another restaurateur, can’t
resist the call of the land and spends hours hunting each week.

This is a ritual that millennia of hunters before them have practised and
savoured. They are the men — yes, mostly men — who shoot the food they love
to eat. They do it not for the thrill of the kill but for the flavour of
wild-shot meat, a taste that has almost been forgotten in this age of mass
production.
Although hunting for flesh is enmeshed in the male psyche, it is not de
rigueur.
‘‘When I tell people I love to hunt, they instantly assume I’m a redneck,’’
says Strathbogie winemaker Matt Fowles.

The oars souvenired from Fowles’s private school rowing club, hanging in his
shed, tell a different story. He was a lawyer who one day found himself in a
Collins Street tower looking out over the suburbs to the country beyond and
found the call of the land overwhelming. He gave up his job in a law firm
and together with his new wife took up the country life in the Strathbogie
Ranges. Partnering with Plunkett Wines to form a new company, he now spends
his spare time armed with a .22rifle hunting the vineyards and surrounding
hills for rabbit and hare.
Fowles wonders why more people don’t hunt to eat: ‘‘The rabbit is declared
vermin. It lives a life in the wild, eating only grasses and herbage. It’s
out and about and ‘bang’, next thing it knows is nothing. It’s not tormented
by a slaughter yard or fed hormones. And it is simply delicious.’’

We sit at his table in his house among the vineyards. He opens a bottle of
his wine, Ladies Who Shoot Their Lunch, a drop he created specifically for
game and named accordingly. The range is based on blending aromatic wines
with the barest of exposure to oak so as not to overpower but complement
the deep but often ephemeral flavours that game exhibits.
Lunch is served: a tray of finely sliced, grilled rabbit livers, served on
toast seasoned with the merest nap of salsa verde. ‘‘The flavour of game
comes through the flesh,’’ he says, ‘‘not the fat.’’ They are tender and
succulent, rich but clean-finishing with a pleasantly livery and grassy
flavour.
Plates of golden-domed pithiviers follow, their buttery, flaky crusts filled
with slow-cooked hare seasoned with juniper.

‘‘Older hares and rabbits are tough and are better for slow cooking,’’
Fowles says. ‘‘Younger animals are more tender.’’ He keeps looking over his
shoulder out the window towards the woodheap where a rabbit has recently
taken up digs.
‘‘They also taste different depending on the feed they are on. The rabbits
on the flats have a little more fat as they are on better, sweeter pasture
compared to the leaner but more mineral-flavoured animals that graze on the
harder pastures in the rocky hills.’’
With the older hares and rabbits, he is content to make a stew, perhaps a
rabbit cacciatore.
‘‘But with the younger rabbits like the one we shot the other day, we
briefly seared the fillets and they were so tender.’’
A dish of confited rabbit legs is served next. More to the tooth than farmed
rabbit with denser flesh, it really is in a league of its own.

Colin Wood likes rabbit but prefers venison. He is a man who shoots most of
the meat he eats. Rabbit, duck and venison. A part-time farmer and part-time
advocate for the Sporting Shooters Association of Victoria, he fired his
first gun at 10 while hunting with his father and uncle, and has basically
supported himself and his family with wild-shot meat ever since.

‘‘We’d go out and bring back the rabbits and quail, sometimes galah which
Mum and my grandmother would eagerly cook into a pie,’’ says Wood, recalling
the days when native birds were not protected species.
He says it is a misconception that galahs and cockatoos are all tough.
‘‘They can live to 70years old and, of course, they are going to be bloody
dreadful, but if you know what you’re doing, a young galah is a tasty,
tender bird.’’

When he is not shooting destructive vermin such as foxes and goats on Crown
land, deer is his main quarry.
Shooting for him is not about kill thrill. He says three-quarters of the
shoot is about being in the wild.
He may stalk a deer in the wild for several days before firing his gun.

‘‘It is always remorseful to kill such a wonderful animal. You wouldn’t be
human. But you weigh that up against the honour of taking home its flesh
that will feed a family for several months.’’
If successful, Wood will field-dress the animal, quartering it and spending
perhaps the best part of a day retrieving the heavy carcass, trekking back
and forward over hard terrain to bring home the bounty. The next day, he
breaks down the beast into kitchen-friendly cuts. ‘‘No one is going to cook
a hind quarter of deer,’’ he says.
‘‘So it is important to cut up the deer so that the cook has cuts they are
happy to use.’’
He pulls a pack of wild-shot venison backstraps from the freezer. They have
been skilfully butchered. Wood notices my admiration and smiles with pride.

Respect for an animal in life and in death are one and the same for Riccardo
Momesso. Tongs in hand, he carefully turns the now deep-golden grilled
quails.
‘‘It must have a swift death and proper treatment in the kitchen. An animal
that is tortured to death will never taste good,’’ he says.

He sprinkles the quail with a little salt, then places a few on an enamel
plate.
He, too, learned to shoot with his father, a Calabrian who would hunt quail
in the paddocks of Broadmeadows behind his Ford factory workplace during
lunch break.

‘‘And hare! I love hare,’’ Momesso says. ‘‘They are a beautiful animal.
They are delicious. We (Calabrians) eat every part of the hare. We braise
the joints in oil with shallots, then garlic. Then we remove them from the
oil, whisk in dark cocoa powder, raisins and then the blood. We cook it
again and wait for the blood to curdle, then add the meat back in.’’

He remembers helping his father skin rabbits at the age of five.

‘‘Mum would wash the hell out of the rabbits, chop them into pieces and
marinate them in olive oil, white wine, garlic and oregano. She’d then saute
them with some of Dad’s home-made pancetta and some pearl onions. In would
go white wine, let that reduce, some red-wine vinegar, white sugar and let
that reduce until it’s all sticky.’’

Momesso pulls the cork from a bottle of red wine, nothing flash, and
splashes a little into a mug. The meat is dense but not dry, more
burgundy-red than pink. Small pockets of golden fat burst in the mouth,
releasing a rich hit of flavour offsetting the solid bird-game taste.

We sit in silence, together, watching the fire and eating the birdswe have
killed, dressed and cooked.'

Wild-shot game can be bought legally from The Chicken Pantry, Queen Victoria
Market and from Wangara Game and Poultry, North Melbourne,
wangaragame.com.au.
Self Defence is not only a Right, it is an Obligation.

Eoin.
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Re: Hunting one's food (a positive story)

Post by Woftam » Thu Jul 29, 2010 9:11 pm

Eion,
did you read all the comments as well ?
A couple of priceless ones in there, including one indicating rabbits were a native Australian animal.
What wasn't so funny was the oxygen thief that made fun of the recent death of a young lad during a deer hunt. Utterly appalling.
The power of accurate observation is frequently called cynicism by those who don't have it.
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Aughnanure
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Re: Hunting one's food (a positive story)

Post by Aughnanure » Fri Jul 30, 2010 1:37 am

Graeme,

I lifted it from a site other than SMH. I'll go read the comments.
Self Defence is not only a Right, it is an Obligation.

Eoin.
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