I am sure that all industries maintain an element of concern about today, not tomorrow. However I feel instead of spending time telling people to focus on the next generation, I am implementing this advice my own way.

This spring, I am returning to my old school, the Kings School Canterbury, where I will teach 11 students to skin, hang and cook game. I have 5 six-hour sessions to teach them to cook a summer menu I have put together, with their input.

We are then going to open a restaurant during their school arts festival (King’s

week) on 27th and 28th of June. We will offer a main meal for around £8, with all the food sourced locally and cooked fresh on the premises by the students.

I am excited at the prospect of teaching a group of people who have no preconceived ideas about game and are willing to learn. Although I am sure that not all of them will become game chefs, what does excite me is that they may well make game part of their everyday diet. This change could overcome one of game’s biggest problems: that it is seen as a luxury that cannot be afforded or that is only eaten on special occasions.

The restaurant I am opening for this weekend is open to the public and if you have any interest in trying our cooking and booking a table then please don’t hesitate to contact me, Mark Gilchrist, at theheadchef@gameforeverything.com

To structure my point I wish to bring you a few clear examples of this kind of stupidity. My first example was when two years ago I went to the CLA (country landowners association) and I wanted to put a restaurant in to their game fair. They claim that the CLA game fair is the biggest and the best, they would. I had a commercial sponsor for this venture, all the paper work and was prepared to work round any problem.

At the first meeting we had to discuss this venture I was a bit surprised to hear that the CLA could not take up my offer as “it would compete with the catering contract.” I can’t express how disappointed I am that people selling burgers come before this type of forward thinking multi beneficial idea. Further to this I resent any organisation that claims to represent the countryside, which also has this kind of pathetic lack of foresight.

Of all the branches of cooking I don’t think that any is as poorly understood as game. I have a daily battle to explain to people that what think they know about game is not right. The reality is for too many people think that something that works nine times out of ten is good enough. If it works nine times out of ten then you cannot possibly understand the process you are subjecting your meat to, by virtue of the fact you have errors in your cooking process.

What is even more difficult to change, is the endemic culture of people who have done some thing badly for a long time believe that their way is best. Personally I see forty years of doing something badly is not in fact a case for competence, it is however a fantastic bank of evidence to demonstrate the contrary.

At the root of this problem I can see the worst trait of all, a lack of ability to change. It is this lack of ability to change, coupled with a culture of premature congratulation that is so wide spread in country side organisations that has got game cooking, shooting and the countryside in the state it is in.

Personally I relish change, some of the greatest steps forward that my cooking has taken has been by realise that my methods are not 100% effective and the rules need to be changed. It is change that motivates me, and in the face of the challenge of trying to ring some reason in to game cooking I consider what is evidently a great challenge, to be a great opportunity.

on the subject of game cooking you can tell in four questions how much anyone knows about the whole topic,

1) what is the your favorite venison dish? if the person fails to give different cooking methods to different species of deer then be worried, the term venison is not used by anyone who has a good knowledge of game cooking.

2) how do you cook a rabbit? if the reply does not discuss soaking in salt water or mentions pan frying then your are dealing with a fool

3) how do you cook a widgeon? if the answers is they are inedible or fantastic you are talking to someone with no experience 4) how do you like you game hung? if the answer is a week, you are talking to someone who is recycling popular misconception as fact.

it is on the last topic i wish to say a few words, as i have a particular bee in my bonnet at the moment about it. i had an excahnge of words the other day with someone who said “game was tough if is was not hung properly.” he refused to listen to my opinion but took some note when i explained that i hung and cooked over 50,000 birds in my career so had some idea.

this is wrong on so many levels, if it has gone tough you have over cooked it that is the problem, nothing and i mean nothing to do with hanging. cooked properly any game bird, from “just shot” to a week in the fridge can be cooked so it is perfectly tender. The cooking of game is something i can teach you in a day, if this is level one of what i do hanging in level 20.

hanging is a complex issue as when hanging game you have two process, the first is hanging a process where by the natural fires of protein that are fused together due to riga mortis are broken down. this process is hardly affected by temperature

then there is the second process known which is decomposing, here the bacteria break down the meat changing the flavour and making it more forgiving in cooking, this process is massively temperature responsive. to make matters worse people who talk about game that  is well hung are actually talking about game that is decomposing (in the most part).

if like me you have a palate, and wish to taste the flavour of the bird rather than revolting flavour of decomposing birds here is how you get them perfectly “hung”. after they have been shot, place them in a fridge strait away, this will cool the core temperature of the birds (48 degrees c for a pheasant) and stop the bacteria in the guts from growing too quickly. this will allow the bird to hang (not decompose) a little known fact it is that after 3 days of hanging the bird will not become more tender as it is hung. job done, finished. those who profess to to love their game hung for a week in the garage cannot possible like it like that  for two reasons. Firstly the temperature of the garage varies during the course of the year. due to the way bacteria grow, (doubling every 8 min at optimal conditions) the resulting level of decomposition is very very different from a week at 0 degrees c and a week at 10 degrees c, suggesting a lack of experience from the person making this claim.

secondly i don’t believe that that is a flavour profile any one can enjoy, unless they are the sort of person that buys the hottest curry on the menu to hide there manhood issues. nothing holds back the popularity of game cooking more than the myth that it has to be rotting to be enjoyed so could all these people who are propagating this myth resolve their man hood issues by buying a sports car and not making my job of promoting game more difficult.

kind regards mark

www.GameForEverything.com

Mark Gilchrist is the head chef and director of ‘Game For Everything’. He specialises in cooking game and only uses wild meat and seasonal produce to make his signature game pies and cater for events and dinner parties. He’s not afraid to experiment either and will confidently add an unusual twist, safe in the knowledge that ‘it just works’.

www.GameForEverything.co.uk