Wild eating
Hunting pukeko and other unusual game
Fossick through my central Auckland flat’s freezer and you’re more likely to find hare or horse than beef or pork. An unplucked pukeko has been there for months, occasionally startling seekers of frozen peas. I make my own deer liver pate, my staple lunch at the office is rabbit stew, and a few weeks ago I braised a peacock in miso.
Arguably, this is very ethical meat eating. Not one of the creatures in my freezer was raised to be killed: they are either deemed pests by the Department of Conservation and thus must be sacrificed, or, in the case of the horse, a domestic animal humanely euthanised.
At the very least, I’m consistent: if you’re ok with eating one kind of animal, I reckon you should be ok with eating any kind of animal. If you’re not, eat none.
My own taste for exotic pest – which has extended to freshly road-killed possum – is rooted in frugality, but it’s also made me a more creative cook, taught me a lot about anatomy, and is satisfying in a back-to-basics sort of way.
The pests hail from on and around my family farm in the North Waikato, where dozens of rabbits can be shot in a single night, deer have been spied cavorting with hares, and wild peacocks caterwaul across limestone gullies. Most reach me via pest eradication hunts. But some have a more novel backstory, like the Christmas Swan of 2017.
It was just me, three dogs, and my friend Shane from Canada on the farm that fateful December 25. The five of us took the quad bike down to a dam where ducks, swans, and geese were gliding across glassy water as the sun started to set and tui chortled in pockets of native bush.
An idyllic scene, until Nelson the labrador spied a family of swans making their way across a paddock on foot. Aware of us, the father lagged behind and feigned a broken wing – it’s a ruse often used by birds when faced with a predator. He was giving his babies time to flee, trying to appear the easier meal.
Nelson fell for it and galloped towards the principled swan.
We called him, screamed at him, and hurtled after him on the quad, but Nelson already had the big black bird in his mouth. I think the poor thing died of fright. He was limp and pulse-less when we got there, but not visibly wounded.
The experience was awful for everyone involved: a selfless swan died traumatically, his family were panicked and probably mourning (swans are monogamous), Nelson got a growling and wore a woebegone look for days, and Shane was horrified – it was his first time facing a death beyond that of an elderly pet.
‘‘What are we going to do with the corpse?’’ he asked, shakily. ‘‘We will eat it,’’ I replied. Christmas dinner an hour later was succulent cubes of grilled swan breast with chutney.
Traumatic as the killing was, it was also possibly as natural a death as we get in the contemporary animal kingdom. An age-old predator versus prey scenario. And while I’d rather the swan hadn’t died, I think it would have been worse to let him go to waste.
Growing up on a sheep and beef farm likely made me more comfortable with death than those raised in urban environments get a chance to be. It also shaped my views on the ethics of meat-eating in general. I remember discussing reincarnation at age nine, for instance, and the conversation going something like this:
School chum #1: ‘‘What animal do you want to come back as?’’ School chum #2: ‘‘Um … a wild horse! No, an eagle! A lion!’’ Me: ‘‘A Hereford bull!’’ School chum #1: ‘‘What the devil?’’ Me: ‘‘They seem happy and just do whatever they want.’’ School chum #2: ‘‘But you’ll get eaten!’’ Me: ‘‘Yes, but that’s ok because I won’t know I’m being eaten.’’
And I don’t think my answer has changed. New Zealand’s pasturebased farms are an entirely different beast to feedlots of the US; yet expose´s of feedlots seem to be the reference point for many meat-shunning Kiwis. Our farm animals spend most of their time grazing atop beautiful landscapes, with space to be alone or socialise as they please. If they get sick, they get treated. If they look hungry, they get shifted to a fresh paddock or gifted hay.
Eventually, most often before they know old age, they get killed. But I’ve been to the meatworks and have shot animals myself – in both cases the animals are unaware of their fate and stay fairly relaxed to the end. Through working as a journalist, I’ve also met all too many humans aware of their fate – dying slowly and painfully as their organs shut down for one reason or another. Those experiences make it hard to believe cattle and sheep face a crueller death than us. Their meat is, however, expensive; that's why I shun it.
A few years in Vietnam taught me that eating some animals but not others was social construct at best. The Vietnamese don’t think
I’ve never understood the ‘farming animals is evil’ agenda of some Kiwi vegans.
twice about eating dog meat wrapped in dainty little bundles of herbs, dipped in a pungent sauce with sesame seeds. Westerners, meanwhile, recoil at the idea – aren’t dog and man besties? But I’ve also been besties with a lamb named Flowergirl, and few people mind me eating her relatives. The experience made me more open to the more cost-effective deliciousness of possum pie, horse curry, or spur-winged plover on a teeny tiny spit.
Or pukeko, for that matter. I decided this story signified the use-by date of the one in my freezer. The bedraggled bird had been low on my to-eat list, as pukeko are known to make unrewarding meals. Its most famous recipe instructs one to place the bird in a pot of simmering water, add an old boot, then after a few days remove the bird and eat the boot.
It was not an auspicious start. Unlike duck feathers, which rip out satisfyingly in downy clumps, a pukeko’s plumage stays stubbornly stuck in its skin.
I turned to Google, which led me to Fish & Game’s ‘how to breast a pukeko’ page. Flag plucking, it advised. Rather, I should lie the bird face down on the ground with its legs stretched towards me.
‘‘Place a foot on each leg, so your boot covers the whole leg,’’ it read, which I did but in slippers. I then leaned down to clasp the base of each wing and as I unfurled – voila! – the wings and breasts came away in my hands.
‘‘Tuck [the breasts] into your bag or belt and leave the rest of the carcass to the harrier hawks,’’ counselled Fish & Game. I skipped that step, sliced the meat finely, and stir-fried it with carrots and cabbage in sesame oil.
The result: rewarding! Though perhaps more through adventure than taste.