‘A rustle, then a bang, and we had our deer’
While hunting with an expert stalker, Xanthe Clay wonders why we are still afraid to cook venison, one of the healthiest and most delicious meats
We’re all going on a deer hunt, and we’re not scared. I am, however, completely terrified of making a noise, startling a sleek roe, and ruining the whole evening for everyone. So the four of us tiptoe down the path; the chef, the food writer, the deer stalker and his gun dog, in a bizarre silent game of Grandmother’s Footsteps. The lateevening sunlight slants down between the beech trees, pooling around the ferns and brambles of North Somerset’s Belmont Estate, as we scour the gloaming for a glimpse of brown fur or branched antler.
Matt Roberts, deer manager and chief stalker, swings his arm behind, gesturing to us to stay in single file. Reaching into his pocket, he produces a rubber bottle and puffs powder into the air, watching carefully where the breeze carries it. “You need to watch the wind,” he explains to me later. “Deer have a very acute sense of smell, which they rely on more than sight.” If the wind is coming from behind us, our scent will alert the animal.
Roberts is the expert. He shot his first rabbit at seven, and now supplies game to local restaurants through Grove Game Larder. He also manages the deer on the Belmont Estate, whose owners are working to create a sustainable events centre with a strong community aspect (think school visits and communal picnics, alongside mindfulness courses, posh dinners and corporate dos) surrounded by rewilded farmland. Roberts was brought in, he tells me, “because the deer were pretty much annihilating their efforts”, destroying hedgerows and eating all foliage up to chest level.
But what about the eating? Venison is one of the healthiest and most delicious meats, yet the British are nervous about cooking it, sticking to the safe quartet of chicken, beef, pork and lamb. According to Shooting Times, demand has crashed with restaurants being closed across Europe, and game dealers are refusing to take any more of the meat. There’s even a Facebook page called Giving up the Game, where stalkers are offering meat at cost price. It’s time for that to change, believes Roberts, and our other companion, Jan Ostle, chef patron at Wilson’s restaurant in Bristol and overseeing culinary operations at Belmont.
Back in the forest, an owl swoops past and a hoot sounds across the valley. We freeze as a twig snaps (was it me?) then ease forward, watching the path for potential noise-bombs, keeping our breathing shallow. Suddenly, Roberts stops. Ostle peers forward, then points. I can see trees, leaves, branches, but no deer. Then a flicker of tan, perhaps 50 yards away: not a branch, but a deer scarpering. “It’s a young male, being seen off by a bigger one,” murmurs Ostle, barely audible. “There’s another one in there.” Fern the dog crouches in anticipation. Roberts lifts his rifle, his shoulders hunched in concentration. We hold our breath.
Roberts lowers the rifle. The larger deer bounds past. “It’s a fine buck. Too good,” he whispers.
The rules of what can be shot are complex. Nothing under a year, no mothers of young (Bambi would never have been cruelly orphaned here). The best animals, too, are spared, like this male, to keep their good genes in the group. Not just that, “strong bucks will maintain a territory that excludes weaker ones and that means less damage to young trees during the fraying and rutting season,” explains Roberts.
It’s clearly about much more than bagging some venison for dinner. In fact, that’s the least of it. Technically, deer stalking comes under the banner of game sports, but, I tell Roberts, it seems far more like a craft than a sport. “100 per cent,” he agrees. And according to many experts, it is vital for our environment. Deer numbers in the UK have spiralled in the past 100 years, to more than two million, up a third from 2013, and thought to be the largest number since the Ice Age.
There are several reasons for this. First, there’s the lack of natural predators. Historically, the wolf and the lynx, both now extinct in Britain, would have controlled numbers, but now there’s no wild limitation, unless you count the unlucky motorist – deer are estimated to cause around 74,000 road accidents a year.
Then there has been the introduction of exotic species. Of the six kinds of deer now living in the wild over here, only the roe deer and the red deer are native to the British Isles, although the fallow deer may have arrived as early as the 1st century AD with the Romans.
But when sika, tiny Chinese water deer and the even smaller muntjac were introduced in the 19th and early 20th centuries – long after the wolves and lynx had been seen off – they quickly escaped from parks to form successful feral communities.
Also playing a significant part in the deer boom, conservationists say, is
commercial interest. Deer shooting weekends can earn landowners tens of thousands of pounds, so some boost numbers by feeding the deer over winter, when group sizes would normally naturally dwindle.
Why should this matter? True, gardeners are driven to distraction by gangs of marauding cervidae feasting on their flowers. But a shy deer bounding over a field with the elegance of a ballet dancer, or their more brazen cousins grazing next to picnickers in Richmond Park, is a beautiful sight, isn’t it?
The problem is not so much the deer themselves, as the sheer quantity of the beasts. Too dense a population of deer can lead to health problems for the animals and a boom time for parasites such as ticks, themselves carriers of Lyme Disease. Increased competition for food means the deer may be undersized and give birth to weaker young. And, say environmentalists, they wreak havoc on the countryside.
While a small number of deer in a wooded area is sustainable, once groups become too large their penchant for young, juicy greens mean they can destroy saplings, devastate wild flower growth and munch their way through any nearby crops of wheat and maize. Reducing numbers by as much as 50 per cent, or even more, is considered vital by conservationists. This could be partly achieved by the use of contraceptive darts, but culling will inevitably be key.
For two more hours, we follow Roberts in the dwindling light, stepping gently over brambles and bending low under branches. The scents of the forest shift as the air cools, mushroomy and clean, with just a suggestion of charred wood from the estate’s pair of traditional charcoal furnaces. Roberts stops again, holding up his hand in warning. A rustle, a bang. We have our deer.
On the grass lies the young “pricket” – a deer with unbranched antlers – the one that the older deer had been threatening earlier. Do I feel sad? Yes, and also conscious that the animal had had a good life, better than many intensively farmed animals. If you are going to eat meat, it’s hard to imagine a more ethical route than this. Roberts handles the animal with respect, stroking any remaining blood from the arteries and gralloching it (removing the intestines) in a deft process performed with surgical precision in the woodland glade, before taking it back for hanging and butchering in the Belmont butchery.
The meat itself, when Ostle drops off a box a week later, is tender and mild, a marker of roe deer, he tells me. We shouldn’t think of all venison as a winter meat. “Roe is not right for celeriac purée and spiced red cabbage. It’s closer to lamb. Perfect to eat at this time of year. Connect to your local game dealer: they will know what is best right now.”
As for how to cook it, don’t rely on clichés. “Beetroot in season is fantastic with roe buck. But equally, kohlrabi complements it so well. The whole conversation about what a venison dish is can change. It doesn’t have to be this rich, heavy, roasted smoky taste. It can be a really light affair, sublime and clean.” Natural, delicious and just a bit too bountiful: let’s not be scared of cooking venison.
I can see trees, leaves, branches, but no deer. Then a flicker of tan, perhaps 50 yards away