Missionary Of Innards

We do not make enough use of the good bits of the animals we kill for food — so why not try giant venison faggots, says Tim Maddams

- H. Mitchell

The whole idea for this particular piece of foodie madness came about while I was thinking about how hunters must have once managed carcases. In the days before cold steel, internal combustion and vacuum-packing, deer would probably have been skinned and butchered where they fell. The skin was probably laid out on the ground, fur side down to be used as a sort of butchering mat.

I like to think that these distant cousins of the modern stalker chopped up the offal with flint axes and baked it, stuffed into the well-washed rumen in a fire hole dug into the earth. Most likely they ate the liver, heart and kidneys still raw — but the past is foreign country and I’m not a caveman.

The point is that offal used to be the first and most accessible part of the animal to be eaten, not least because it will also be the first thing to go bad if the carcase is not used immediately.

As sporting men and women, we have an ethical obligation to eat as much of any animal we hunt successfully as possible. That does not mean you have to use it all yourself right down to the oink.

You can feed deer bones and pheasant carcases to your dogs, once you have had all the best bits. But even among hunters and fishermen, offal seems to be the last great culinary taboo — or perhaps a new one.

Our hard-up ancestors in the early 20th century would have been very glad of a hunk of tripe for supper. It strikes me as a little absurd that we find it perfectly acceptable to drink the lactic excretions of large bovines but struggle with liver and onions.

Furthermore, whether we like the idea of it or not, nearly all of us consume offal when we eat pâté or celebrate the life of the Scottish bard with a healthy helping of haggis.