Game On

WITH the current obsession for locally-sourced foods, it’s odd we haven’t embraced the most genuinely local food there is... the beasts that live in our woods and hedgerows.

You don’t have to be a shotgun-wielding tweed freak to realise that game is the ultimate wonder food.

It’s ethical, healthy, ecologically-sound, free range, is not cranked full of drugs, and is humanely dispatched.

And being, for the most part, native species of our isles, there are none of those dreaded air miles we, as responsible citizens, are now supposed to shun.

Tucking into pheasant and venison even helps protect the patchwork beauty of the countryside – giving farmers a reason not to plough up our last precious scraps of woodland.

So why is it so rare to find Great British game on menus?

It’s a question which also vexes award-winning chef Yvonne Hamlett.

Together with her team at the ludicrously pretty Peacock Inn, in Oxhill, near Banbury, she has not just embraced game, she is championing the benefits of boar, deer, wild duck and pheasant and is winning over the good folk of the north Cotswolds.

With a groaning trophy cabinet of accolades, the Peacock is ideally placed to lead the game revolution. Literally.

Oxhill, lost in the tangle of lanes in that divine patch of country between Shipston on Stour, Banbury and Chipping Norton, is able to buy in the very best game, all sourced from within a few miles.

So the venison comes from the grounds of Compton Wynyates – the turreted Tudor pile up the road – while the boar comes from Agdon Farm, in Brailes, where 33-year-old Ollie Cripps, who farms with his dad Richard, has become one of the few wild hog producers in the land – raising them on barley, apples and vegetable peelings, including those from the Peacock’s kitchen.

I joined Ollie for dinner at the Peacock (recent winner of the Champion Regional Pub and Newcomer categories in the Great British Pub Awards) for one of its regular themed evenings, to find out why the villagers here – less than an hour’s drive from Oxford – are going wild for boar.

I suggest to Ollie, who has spent his whole life on the farm, that it must be a bit weird tucking into slices of an animal he has cared for, named and reared from piglet?

“Not really,” he says, laughing at a remark that could only have come from a non-farmer.

“It’s like that with all our animals. The boar are strong characters though, and can be fierce. But they do seem to like me... and they don’t bite the hand that feeds them!”

The food is, of course, spectacular. Yvonne has pushed the boundaries of what many think of as a robust and sometimes overpowering meat, by concocting true delicacies.

So we start with a sharing platter of chunky wild boar terrine, balanced by a sweet beetroot chutney, a smooth game bird pate with a red onion confit, a refined melt-in-the-mouth carpaccio of venison fillet, and wild boar and black pudding scotch quali eggs.

There was also a delicately smoked pheasant breast served with an unusual, but inspired, crispy-topped blue cheese brûlée, and, as a Cotswold homage to the old Chinese favourite, crispy wild duck with black bean sauce wrapped in lettuce leaves.

The meat itself is a strong, firm dark pork which packs a tasty punch but is balanced by the lighter, sweeter flavours.

It was followed by wild boar cooked three ways – heaped plates of twice-cooked belly of boar, black pudding, stuffed roasted loin and wild boar sausage – all stacked on a creamy mound of mash, served with buttered cabbage, and drenched in a fabulous cider, sage and apple gravy.

As they were brought out, to the obvious pride of Ollie, we were joined by the man responsible for seeing our boar’s transition from sty to kitchen – the butcher.

Food doesn’t come any more local than this, or more personal. Not only did we know the name of the beast, but also of everyone involved in getting it to the table. And the beauty of it was, they were all regular customers at what is, at its heart, still a proper local boozer.

“We’re not a gastro pub,” Yvonne tells me, “Just a great village pub which serves good food. People know they don’t have to get dressed-up to come in… they can come in straight off their tractors.

“We always try to have game on the menu. People love the flavour and texture, and the fact it is lower in fat and healthy. And it couldn’t be more local.”

No wonder they’re hogging the limelight.

* The Peacock Inn, Main Street, Oxhill, is just off the A422 between Banbury and Stratford. Visit thepeacockoxhill.co.uk or call 01295 688060. The three course Olde English game menu costs £25 including coffee.