Lunch like a Victorian

Tim Maddams asks if our great-grandparents would recognise the game dishes of today and investigates what we can learn from the past

These days, even folk who hunt their own meat are sometimes missing the odd opportunity to experience something out of the ordinary at the table. Perhaps because of busy lives, a lack of thoughtfulness or simply because they have had a bad experience with a certain meat in the past and are now prejudiced against it forevermore. We all have the odd thing we simply won’t eat.

It is worth noting though, that except the stalkers, wildfowlers, rabbiters and pest controllers, the majority of Shots will mostly encounter pheasant and partridge on their hunting forays. That’s probably part of the problem; not only has the sport become commonplace and more or less guaranteed, and in my opinion lost some of its allure along the way, these meats are the least fragrant and textural of all the game.

Don’t get me wrong, I am a big fan of pheasant meat and partridges have their merits of course, but are they really that interesting? Do they have a distinct flavour? Not really. I mean no disrespect — obviously a pheasant tastes like a pheasant and a partridge tastes like a partridge and that is all well and good — but by comparison to a rook, a hare or a snipe they dwindle, wain almost, in comparison. This got me thinking — are we missing something special here? Would our great-grandparents recognise the dishes we eat today and should we try eating a few of theirs?

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