Roadkill
Road chef
Cooking and eating road-kill is economical and quite legal. Nice glass of merlot with your free-range festive bird, sir?
Christmas is here, your rapacious in-laws are hungry and turkey ain’t getting any cheaper. Fear not: pull up by the roadside when next out for a spin, gather up that bloody sack of sinew and bones that has come off worse in a tussle with a 4×4, and bundle it into your ‘bag for life’.
That’s right, we’re talking about dining on road-kill, but don’t worry – the National Trust, advocate of cucumber-sandwich-and flask-of-tea days out, encourages it. Well alright, “encourages” might be pushing it a bit, but it certainly suggests it as a viable option in Wild Food, the organisation’s “practical guide to collecting food in the wild” – although it cautions: “The highway supermarket is a real test of our commitment to eating wild food.” Well quite.
Food on the hoof
Our cousins across the pond are forever free-fooding it up on the free freeway, with some roadside eateries even offering a “from your grille to our grill” service. It’s unlikely that Little Chef managers would welcome gluttonous Brit gourmands strolling in holding rigor mortis-ing badgers aloft – but give it a try, by all means.
“When a carcass is flyblown and crawling with maggots, it’s good to go”
In the UK your bush-meat harvest could include delicacies such as rabbit, squirrel, boar, hedgehog, blackbird or pheasant. Cats and dogs are fine; you may prefer to devour pitbulls (having had such fun biting kids’ faces off, they’ve got it coming), but reportedly labradors have the most tender flesh. Of course during the festive season, a flattened turkey or a partridge knocked out of its pear tree would be particularly welcome finds.
”The meat will be riddled with splintered bones, which are tricky to extract, and infused with tyre rubber and sump oil”
Dem bones
Choose corpses knocked to roadside verges over those stuck to the tarmac. The latter are more likely to have been run over repeatedly; while this may have a favourable tenderising effect, the meat will be riddled with splintered bones, which are tricky to extract, and infused with tyre rubber and sump oil. As for timing, Wild Food reports cheerfully: “When a carcass is flyblown and crawling with maggots, it’s good to go… As long as it is cleaned carefully, all maggots removed, and properly cooked, it is safe to eat.”
“Taking vehicular pot shots at Flopsy Bunny and friends is definitely verboten”
Apparently in all good stately homes (and believe us, The Hussy has been an overnight guest at more than a few): “The gamekeeper hangs up any catches intact and places a basket underneath: when the first maggots drop into the basket the meat is ready for the kitchen.”
Don’t get overzealous…
A word of warning though; do not, on the night of your dinner party, climb into your car and take to the roads with murder on your mind, like some sort of motoring, gastronomic Charles Manson. Careering around the countryside taking vehicular pot shots at Flopsy Bunny and friends is definitely verboten. Eat what you find or hit by accident, no problem, but accelerating deliberately into that dog trapped in your headlights is sadly illegal. Still, accidents will happen. Especially when you’re feeling peckish.
Wild Food by Jane Eastoe costs £6.99 and is available from www.amazon.co.uk
