Game for a new taste on the dining table

From today, pheasants across Yorkshire will be making the transition from the woods to the dinner table as hundreds of shoots across the county get into action.

Research shows the value of game birds sold to the public has increased by more than a third in recent years.

Yorkshire Game, based at Catterick, is one of the companies to have benefited.

Richard Townsend, the managing director, says: “The supermarkets are now stocking game. We’re supplying pheasants and partridge this year to Morrisons who have never sold game before like that.”

He reckons celebrity chefs and programmes such as Masterchef are partly responsible for the interest in trying all kinds of game

“People are wanting to eat it and it’s the pub chains, not just the top-class restaurants that sell pheasant.

“Partridge demand is growing all the time as well. After pheasants they’re the next biggest bird. We find it’s popular because it’s such an easy meat to eat, it’s not a strong ‘gamey’ flavour.

Tim Bilton, the owner-chef of the Butchers Arms at Hepworth is a big fan of game.

“It’s one of my favourite times of the year, coming into autumn and we have a great relationship with our local shoot. They supply us with all our game, they charge us a pittance, and at the end of the season we put on a big gala dinner for their shoot.

“One of our most popular dishes is pan-roast pheasant with a confit pheasant leg. The confit needs to be cooked in goose or duck fat because there’s that many tendons in the leg, and that makes it easier to take them out. We serve that with some dry-cured Yorkshire bacon and some savoy cabbage.”

Tim Bilton gets his pheasants from a non-commercial shooting syndicate. Most of what is served in pubs and sold through supermarkets in Yorkshire comes from bigger commercial shoots.

This is where game dealers like Richard Townsend come into the picture. It’s generally the day after a shoot has had its sport that he goes along to collect the birds.

“All the shoots we deal with have good chillers on site so the birds are hung up in refrigerated larders,” says Richard.

“They’re put in there overnight to cool down properly. We collect the following morning and they’re into the factory here for processing.”

George Winn-Darley manages several estates around the North York Moors which have pheasant shoots. He says he isn’t surprised the birds are proving popular with the public.

“It’s a very healthy meat,” he says. “Some species of game like grouse are virtually fat free and it’s as close to organic as you can probably get without it being registered as such.”

The birds’ sale provide some income for the shoots. But the majority of the money is earned by selling the shooting days to the guns.

In George Winn-Darley’s case this accounts to about 95 per cent of income. Sale of the birds for meat brings in a smaller amount.

“Pheasant ‘in feather’ are somewhere in the region of 40p to a pound, per bird,” he says. “Partridges are less, usually in the 30p to 70p price range.”

Almost all of the pheasants shot on the estates he manages go for food.

The exceptions are those suffering from health problems, or which have been injured prior to being shot.

“If the game is showing any form of disease or is damaged, for instance if the skin is broken, it could be seen as a source of contamination.”

He explains that this is no different to what happens in an abattoir where meat is inspected both before and after it is killed.

Of course game bird meat can only be inspected after killing but those who do the inspecting know what to look for. In previous years much of the pheasant shot in Yorkshire was exported. Richard Townsend says that 15 years ago just 10 per cent of the birds he dealt with stayed here. Now it is nearer 65 per cent.

The supermarkets becoming players in the market has made a difference, although their influence is limited by the fact that they need guaranteed supplies. But pheasants and partridge, unlike chickens, can’t be bred and killed to order.

There may be interruptions to supplies, not because there aren’t enough birds but because bad weather has cancelled or postponed shoots.

Richard adds, “The buyers are aware of these things, that this is a wild product and it is not predictable and that you’re going to have the ups and downs over the course of the season.”

“Consequentially we’re not subject to the same penalties that a more conventional food supplier would be to a supermarket or other food service companies.”

Other game birds, as well as pheasant are proving popular too. “Partridge demand is growing all the time,” Richard Townsend tells me. The season for them started at the beginning of September.

Tasty Pheasant Factfile

The male Common Pheasant (Phasianus colchicus) has striking chestnut, golden brown and black markings on the body and tail, a green head and red face.

The female has paler brown, mottled plumage. They were introduced here probably by the Romans.

For sport shooting, specific types and breeds have been brought in. One broad group comprises larger, heavier birds, such as ring necked and black necked.

The other main group is made up of smaller and lighter birds.

In total there’s a resident population of about 1.6m breeding females.