FARMER’S WIFE
My interest in cooking has grown steadily over the years, driven primarily by a love of eating. The amount of cooking I actually do has also grown steadily over the years, driven primarily by the need to feed a growing family. In the last year, however, growth has gone off the scale since I was asked to help in the kitchen of a local shoot. It was made to sound so easy, I signed up straightaway.
WINTER It isn’t difficult work, there is just rather a lot of it. Two of us feeding between eight and twelve guests breakfast, an elevenses hamper, lunch and sometimes tea, as well as twenty beaters’ lunches. Forty eight times over a four month period. It can rather take the edge off a love of cooking for one’s family. The ‘shooting scene’ is not one I have spent a lot of time in, despite being a farmer’s daughter, wife and agricultural college graduate. We have enjoyed some fabulous days on some fabulous farms and estates over the years, and I have done my fair share of beating, but it isn’t until now that I have truly begun to appreciate the level of activity it involves. It is so easy to cast judgement against it as a ‘cruel’ sport, enjoyed only by the privileged few, but I see a side of it that makes up an enormous part of the rural economy. The list of people, from all walks of life, who earn a living from it must be pretty much endless, as is the amount of work that goes into running one. The one thing that really grates, though, is the lack of demand for game birds on the table. Certainly they are bred to be shot and, in being shot, have fulfilled their destiny but 74
Cotswold Homes Magazine
to not then eat them is a waste of a potential meal, and a good one at that. In my experience, pheasants and partridges can make life seriously hard work for the eater. The meat just doesn’t seem to want to come off the bones, it is as if they are unwilling to be eaten. Cut the breasts out, however, and it’s a whole different ball game. Curries, pies, casseroles –
“Start with a curry; I have made both the River Cottage Murgh Makhani (a three day process) and Patak’s curry-paste-in-a-jar (an hour at most) versions and both have resulted in clean plates.” delicious! When I started with the shoot I was outraged that neither the guns nor the beaters were served game for their lunches. I was determined to make a change: “they won’t eat it” I was told…“they bloody will!” I said in return - and guess what? They do!
My tip for this shooting season is to seek out your local shoot, chat up the gamekeeper and bag yourself a brace of pheasants. Start with a curry; I have made both the River Cottage Murgh Makhani (a three day process) and Patak’s curry-paste-in-a-jar (an hour at most) versions and both have resulted in clean plates. Worried your guests won’t eat pheasant? Tell them it’s chicken. Works like a dream.