1940s Archive

Game at Large

Originally Published November 1948

When I was in England, how many times I watched the hunters there—red-coated riders on beautiful horses racing after the hounds, hot on the scent of some unlucky fox. Exciting sport—magnifique—what William Somerville back in 1735 called the “sport of kings.” But it was hunting that had nothing to do with “a large, cold bottle and a small, hot bird.” The hunt breakfasts—fine, hearty repasts that they were—certainly had no connection with the unfortunate fox.

In France I have watched many a group of hunters, too. Not only watched them, as a boy I almost always tagged along with them. But they were trudging on foot, guns over their shoulders, their quarry deer and hare, or more often pheasant, partridge, and woodcock. Not so impressive a sight, you say, as the red-coated riders? Mais non. But the added pleasure ahead more than made up for that—the certain knowledge that a well-sauced civet or a savory and succulent faisan would in due time surely make its appearance.

Of course I have known many Britishers, too, who hunt for deer and birds they will enjoy eating. Scotch grouse, always a favorite among connoisseurs of game, is a perfect example. But I have known few, if any, Frenchmen who, when aiming their guns, failed to aim their thoughts at the same time on a gastronomic finale of special game dishes—and not forgetting the good bottle caché derrière les faggots.

Here in the United States you find sportsmen of both kinds, although the fox-hunting set is a fairly small group. The others, those who hunt for deer and game birds, make up our great mass of hunters—and when fall comes the woods are alive with them. Consider, for example, hunting in the Dakotas. It is estimated that a million pheasants are brought down by some thirty thousand hunters a season in North Dakota and that forty thousand hunters do even better per man in South Dakota, where Sioux Falls is called the pheasant capital of the world. Or go across country to Maine. More than twenty thousand deer are killed there each year. And these, please note, are only two species of game taken in only three states. I wonder how much is bagged in our forty-eight states? And then what happens to it? Is it eaten? Or wasted? I hope you sportsmen are enjoying at your own tables all the game you bring in. Or if you are lucky enough to be given a fine saddle of venison or some tender young partridges, I hope you do them justice in the kitchen.

I myself can't claim to be much of a hunter, even though in my boyhood I so often went along with relatives who were enthusiastic sportsmen; I was very proud to be the nephew of one man well known in our part of France for his skill as a shot. But my taste for the actual shooting was spoiled, I'm afraid, when I was spending my small-boy vacations on my grandfather's farm. Partridges were so plentiful there that getting them was hardly a sport. You would see them every day running through the potato and wheat fields looking for the ants' nests they liked so well. Every farmer kept his eyes on them, especially on the baby partridges following close to the mother hen and getting plumper and plumper as the summer wore on. When the season opened, the birds seemed almost waiting to be shot. And the good prices they brought at the weekly market in town weren't to be overlooked either. But sometimes a wounded bird would be able to run just far enough to elude the farmer gathering up the ones he had shot. As a youngster I was always finding these pathetic little creatures, and the memories somehow took away the thrill of shooting them when I was older.

In mon pays—the part of France where I was raised—the hunting parties didn't start out until after the crops were harvested because the local sportsmen always waited for their farmer friends before going off to the woods. But then, all of a sudden, the hunting boots would appear, the guns were inspected and freshly oiled, and the gibecières—the bags they slung over their shoulders to hold the game—were put out to air. The dogs would be quivering with excitement, the smell of the preparations almost too much for them to stand. Even the local pastry shops—and every town had a good pâtisserie—knew they had better anticipate the demand for the pâtés that the hunters always took along for lunch. These are meat pies made with pastry that is short and good and filled with a luscious, savory meat filling. We had never even heard of sandwiches. Wine, usually white wine in mon pays, was always taken along, carried in gourds dried in every household just for this purpose. Then to top it all off, there were the newly ripened peaches, plums, pears, and grapes that grew along the way. Simple picnic lunches, but how good they were. I would be very happy right now to eat one out under a bright fall sky.

No, it has never been the shooting of game that interested me particularly. It is its cooking and the good eating, naturellement, that run through my thoughts when people start to talk about hunting. And certainly I have had plenty of opportunity all through my life of indulging my liking for both cooking game and eating it. First at home in Montmarault I helped my mother or grand'mère or tante make the marinade for a hare brought in by my uncle or perhaps tied the salt pork and grape leaves around quail to be roasted. Later it was cooking great quantities of venison and boar and all the many game birds that were served in the fine châteaux around Moulins after the haut monde came back from days of strenuous hunting. These gourmets insisted on nothing less than the most expert attention given to preparing the game they bagged, and so the establishment where I served my apprenticeship used to send people into their homes to take care of the parties, just as caterers in this country prepare and serve for weddings and other functions.

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