It’salongshot,butitmaysaveYomtov
MUCH CRITICISM has been aimed at the government for its latest attempt to rein in the onslaught of the coronavirus. The Rule of Six, limiting gatherings to six persons, pretty much puts the kibosh on the family meals and social gatherings that happen around the High Holy Days. There are exemptions, of course — for workplaces and schools, and some organised sports and outdoor activities, such as polo and shooting.
Our usual family meal on Erev Rosh Hashanah would have been 12-plus. But this year, we agreed — we are stroppy but also law-abiding — that we would stay in our respective households and communicate via Zoom while we dipped our apple slices in honey and wished each other a sweet new year.
The other day, while at my local Jewish fishmonger, I said what a shame it was that I wouldn’t be ordering a “salmon for 12” this year.
“You wouldn’t believe how many customers have done just that,” he responded. ‘“A large salmon for 12, or 20 sea bass. Sometimes I even said, ‘You know you’re not allowed to have that many people, right?’ but they just looked embarrassed and shrugged.”
On the whole, Jews are more given to studying than shooting, and prefer their food nicely presented on a plate with parsley and a slice of lemon, rather than having to be hunted down outdoors then plucked or skinned etc. But we are an adaptable people, and I think the Government’s exemption provides a good opportunity for us to have the family gatherings we so enjoy at this stage of the Jewish calendar. I wonder: Would it be possible to have “just a straightforward shooting weekend”, as immortalised by Prince Andrew, or would we be looking for a slightly less conventional experience? A nonstraightforward shoot, in fact?
To investigate, I trek to the wilds of north London to speak to a Jewish game-keeper, Mr Abe Vorschmack. I tell him we really have no desire to shoot grouse, primarily because we are worried about the environmental costs including heather-burning and the illegal killing of birds of prey, but we are interested in hunting something a bit more haimishe. What can he suggest?
“Basically, you have three options — gefilte fish, schmaltz herring and chopped herring,” he begins.
“But — surely those are all just prepared products, not fish species?” I say, flabbergasted.
He laughs.
“That’s a common misconception,” he explains. “Take the herring, for example — the principal species are the Atlantic herring, the Pacific herring, and the Araucanian herring, but there are others, including the dwarf round herring, the redeye round herring, and of course, the lesser-seen schmaltz herring and the common chopped herring. This last is the one we like to hunt — and we have to shoot them as, unfortunately for them, they can’t actually swim.”
I am intrigued and ask Mr Vorschmack about the possibility of setting up a Covidsecure shoot for my family to coincide with Breaking the Fast. How would the shoot work?
“It’s easy to maintain social distancing during a shoot,” he informs me. “For safety, you have to have the Guns (the shooters, to you and me) spread out anyway. Ditto for the beaters. On a grouse shoot, the beaters walk — spaced at intervals — beating the heather and undergrowth so the grouse fly up towards the Guns.”
But what is the procedure for chopped herring?
“Well, the good news is that chopped herring, as well as not being able to swim, also can’t fly — so really, catching them doesn’t require a very high level of marksmanship, or indeed sporting skill of any kind.”
“That sounds ideal as we don’t have sporting skills of any kind.”
“And you’ll save a lot of money as we don’t need to bother with beaters — unless you want the effect? Some people like having members of the proletariat bashing through the woods just, you know, for the atmosphere and the look of the thing — so you can show your friends you’re rich enough to hire people just to hit the ground with sticks.”
“Er... OK — I think we can probably manage without, thanks.”
“Also, to be honest, we find that when people are fasting, it’s not worked fantastically well to give them guns. They tend to be lightheaded and walk around in circles muttering ‘I must have honey cake’ — this is not ideal when you’re handling a lethal weapon. With hindsight, I think we should have realised it might lead to... um... the odd fatality. Luckily, most of the injured and killed were beaters — and not rich enough to afford lawyers, so we dodged a bullet there... even if they didn’t.”
“I see... and then afterwards we can all sit down and eat the herring?”
“Absolutely — we find our Jewish groups tend to want to get the sport bit of the day over as quickly as possible so that they can move on to the eating and talking bit. We set out tables over here... Tables are maximum groups of six with two metres between tables.”
“Perfect. There’s just one problem.” “What’s that?”
“At least half of us don’t actually like chopped herring...”
The common chopped herring is the one we like to hunt’
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