Haunch cuisine
Tom Godber-ford Moore shows how versatile deer meat is
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 carcasses from local stalkers for free. The devaluation of any meat is never a good thing and can only have detrimental repercussions along the line, be they economic, environmental or ethical.
The good news is that venison consumption as a whole is on the up. Research by the Scottish Venison Association in 2019 found an increase of 10.9% in the retail market. Over 12 months, this equates to 1,221 tonnes of venison that the public has picked up off the shelf to cook at home.
What I feel we need to do, as advocates of a sustainable rural existence, is spread the word that the wild stuff is just as good – in my opinion, much better – than the stuff on the supermarket shelves. If as many people who eat venison were as discerning on its origins as they are when they eat, say, beef – and it were as normal to ask the type and origin of their venison steak on the restaurant menu as it is to ask the breed of cattle – then the smaller producers and stalkers may find this to their advantage.
There is far more to Cervidae, the all-encompassing deer family, than one simple word can express. As a chef, I may be expected to be harping on about the differences in flavour and texture, but it is scientific rather than culinary fact that is most demonstrative of these differences. Cervidae goes on to break into several genera, meaning in basic form, the red deer (Cervidae cervinae) and the roe deer (Cervidae capreolinae) are as unrelated as, say, a sheep (Bovidae ovis) and a cow (Bovidae bos).
Be that as it may, a chef I remain and flavour and texture are where it’s really at. So here are my views on the way in which they differ, and how best to make the most of those differences.