With British Game Week in November, now is the time to try some of the area’s best wild food from The Dorset Game Larder
Image: Gay Pirrie-Weir
It’s time to up your game! Great British Game Week runs from 4th to 10th November, so what better time to try some wild food from the local countryside? With cold winter nights drawing in, we all look forward to hearty casseroles, stews or pies, and Chris Tory of The Dorset Game Larder has a mouth-watering range, from partridge to venison, pigeon to squirrel, to encourage you to put some new dishes on the table for family and friends.
Fans of foraging and wild food programmes on television will be familiar with the arguments for finding food that is local, natural and ticks the sustainability and health boxes – and high protein, low fat game really does. Wild game also has a lower carbon footprint than most mass-produced meat, and the industry plays an important role in countryside management.
Now established as one of the most reliable game suppliers in the area, The Dorset Game Larder began in 2009 as a natural development from the small commercial shoots run by Chris and his brother on their farms near Blandford.
They started preparing birds for the table and gradually other local shoots asked them to deal with their surplus birds.
As the business grew, they were not only approached by more local shoots, but also asked to supply a large number of birds to the Hampshire-based Blackmore Game.
At one point, Chris recalls, they were taking birds from 28 local shoots.
Time to re-think
The Game Larder was set up in the old stables at the family farm, and that same year, the family sold their dairy cows. As the business grew, Chris joined the new Direct from Dorset organisation, which later became Dorset Food & Drink. He is a member of the successor organisation, but still displays the Direct from Dorset logo, which remains an important part of the identity of Dorset Game Larder products.
In 2012, Chris successfully applied to Chalk and Cheese, an EU-funded grant programme supporting the local food, drink and crafts sectors in rural areas. He received a grant of £5,000 for a chiller, which is still very much in use, functioning as a walk-in fridge or freezer, depending on the time of year.
The Blackmore Game partnership split up in 2015, with a considerable impact on Dorset Game Larder. ‘We downsized, and we had to come up with other products,’ says Chris. ‘We had already started making sausages and burgers. And we went back to working with just three or four shoots.’
Venison for Christmas
Dealing in venison was an obvious next step. These large mammals have no natural predators in the UK and in some areas they are now in such numbers that they have an adverse effect on the environment, farming and forestry, making management of the wild animals a necessity. Sika deer are a particular problem in the Purbecks. Dorset Game Larder’s venison is also sourced from Bloxworth and Wareham forest. Sika are larger than native fallow and roe deer, but there is more meat-to-bone in the fallow breed.
Covid, followed by avian flu, both had a big impact on shoots and on the Game Larder. But while a lot of shoots have folded, others survived and a new large wild game business has opened at Oakland Park in Berkshire. Chris has observed a growing interest in game, and sales of venison in particular have increased.
The Dorset Game Larder sells venison in many forms – mince, burgers, sausages, diced ready to casserole, steaks, fillets and joints of shoulder or haunch, a Christmas favourite with a lengthy historic tradition.
Feathered game – pheasant, partridge, grouse, pigeon and wild duck – comes dressed, or you can just buy the breasts, a simple, quick dish for those not experienced in game cookery.
The wide selection of sausages and burgers includes venison, wild game, pheasant and rosemary, or pheasant and cranberry. Rabbit is always available, dressed or diced, and for those looking for something more adventurous (and helping with environmental protection), there is dressed squirrel. Legally classed as vermin – and infamous for the way they have driven the charming and much smaller native red squirrel out of much of mainland England – grey squirrels do a lot of damage to young trees and are a threat to nests and young birds. They taste a bit like rabbit, but stronger, says Chris.
You can visit the Dorset Game Larder farm shop near Shapwick. Local retailers who carry Chris’s wild game include Dike’s at Stalbridge, Richardson’s Budgens in Swanage, Stuart Pearce’s butcher’s shop in Blandford, Pamphill Butchers, Enford farm shop near Shillingstone and Vines Close farm shop near Wimborne.
How do you cook it?
Chris’s go-to book for venison inspiration is Jose Souto’s Venison: The Game Larder. The former House of Commons chef and lecturer at the Westminster Kingsway College is one of this country’s leading game experts. With photographs by Steve Lee, the book is a comprehensive guide to venison, covering everything from provenance and management to recipes by Jose and other top chefs including Tom Kerridge, Phil Vickery and Peter Gordon. Jose says: ‘In the UK we no longer have any predator species to prey on venison because we got rid of all the bears and wolves and lynxes. We have a moral obligation to manage them. It is also a very ethical way of harvesting. The deer have not been put in trucks and transported, or put on a stainless steel gangway to be shot. The deer spend all their life living outside in the countryside doing what they are supposed to do. And there’s no suffering or stress when they are killed.
‘Some people challenge that, but I don’t understand their argument. They eat chickens – and look at how so much of our chicken is produced.’
Jose has also written a companion volume, Feathers: The Game Larder and a third focusing on small furred game is planned. If you can find a copy, Julia Drysdale’s 1975 Game Cookery Book (follow the link to find them on Abebooks – Ed), which she compiled for the Game Conservancy Council, is a great practical guide, with reliable recipes. Clarissa Dickson-Wright’s Game Cookbook is, as you would expect, knowledgeable and full of her extravert personality, and Glorious Game, published in 2019, features recipes from 101 chefs, including Angela Hartnett, Margot Henderson, Tom Kerridge, Jeremy Lee, Tom Aikens, Paul Ainsworth, Sat Bains and Ollie Dabbous. All proceeds directly benefit The Moorland Communities Trust and The Game and Wildlife Conservation Trust.
thedorsetgamelarder.co.uk
Meet the Dorset Game Larder team at the Dorset Food and Drink Winter Fair at Athelhampton House, Saturday 9th and Sunday 10th November, from 10am to 3pm.
