2009 Gamebird Food Festival

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2009 Gamebird Food Festival

The “outdoor supermarket” for gamebirds opens this weekend as hunters take to the country’s swamps and paddock for the traditional Opening Weekend. After the chill of the autumn wind and rains, the hunters’ reward is to share a feast of healthy, delicious, gamebird meat with their family and friends.

As it is illegal to sell or buy gamebirds, only hunters, and the lucky few they choose to share with, can experience the unique taste of gamebird meat. Fish & Game New Zealand’s 2009 Gamebird Food Festival provides a select few regional and city chef’s with the rare opportunity to test their skills to transform gamebirds into specially crafted dishes for their hunter patrons during the Gamebird Hunting season.

Turning a gamebird into a gourmet dish can be a challenge for most of us. Experience is required to be able to gauge the age of the gamebird and manage the meat’s aging to achieve just the right level of “gaminess”. Then there is the dilemma of choosing the best cooking method including roasting, braising, or confit, before thinking about accompanying ingredients, flavours and presentation. .

Hunters are enthusiastic to try restaurant standard “wild cuisine” as popularised by TV’s celebrity chefs on programmes such as New Zealanders Steve Logan and Al Brown’s Hunger for the Wild and UK’s Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s River Cottage series. 

The 2009 Gamebird Food Festival restaurants have been chosen for their quality and innovativeness and many have won or been finalists in the Cuisine magazine 2008 Restaurant of the Year awards. There are over 25 regional and city festival restaurants throughout New Zealand. Some of their chefs have cooked gamebirds in Europe, such as Adrian Brett-Chinnery from Bracu (Bombay), Pascal Bedel from Le Canard (Wellington), Horst  Wellmeyer from Seifrieds Restaurant (Appleby), Harrie Geraerts from Fantail Lodge (Kati Kati), Phillip Nordt from Huntley House (Christchurch)and Tony Lolaiy from Cazador (Auckland). Other chefs are hunters themselves such as Tony Smith from Canterbury Tales (Christchurch), Scott Kennedy from Nero Cafe & Restaurant (Palmerston North)and Steve Logan and Al Brown from ”Hunger for the Wild’s” Logan Brown (Wellington). Other chef’s are renowned innovators with a passion for organic and wild foods including as Matt Bouterey from Bouterey’s at 251 (Richmond), Jason Innes from Amisfield Winery & Bistro (Queenstown), Andreas Linburg from Mudbrick Winery & Restaurant (Waiheke Island) and Brenton Low from à Deco (Whangarei)

With Pomegranate Glazed quail with black rice pilaf and coconut, Confit of Game Bird with Braised Red cabbage, duck liver pate, candied apples and cider and mustard oil and Wild duck curry on the last year’s menu, hunters are eagerly anticipating this year’s menu.

The list of festival restaurants and some recipes can be found on Fish & Game NZ’s website; www. gamebirdnz.blogspot.com. Festival restaurants make a price reduction for the gamebird meat component of the dish to comply with the laws against buying or selling gamebirds. The 2009 Gamebird Food Festival runs from 3 May to 28 June.

The Gamebird Food Festival is an initiative of Fish & Game NZ to promote responsible, licensed hunting and the value of gamebirds as a natural and desirable food.

ENDS

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