Transcript
WEBVTT
00:00:00.100 --> 00:00:05.092
Today's episode of the Meat and Greet Barbecue Podcast is brought to you by AOS Outdoor Kitchens.
00:00:05.092 --> 00:00:09.111
They are the South's leading outdoor kitchen design and installation specialists.
00:00:19.420 --> 00:00:22.123
Welcome to another episode of the Meat and Greet Barbecue podcast.
00:00:22.123 --> 00:00:32.295
Today we're talking to Alex from Hunter Gatherer Cooking, a well-known YouTuber, live fire cook, really keen to understand a little bit more about his story.
00:00:32.295 --> 00:00:37.304
So, without much further ado, here's Alex.
00:00:37.304 --> 00:00:38.207
Well, welcome to the show.
00:00:38.207 --> 00:00:40.612
Alex, Really really pleased to have you on.
00:00:45.082 --> 00:00:46.411
Please introduce yourself and tell our guests who you are.
00:00:46.411 --> 00:00:47.177
My name's Alex.
00:00:47.177 --> 00:00:52.530
I'm the I don't know what I call myself, but owner editor of Hunter Gatherer Cooking.
00:00:52.530 --> 00:01:09.701
That is a food lifestyle blog that gets me all over the country, sometimes out the country as well, and it's split between barbecuing, uh, shooting country lifestyle, um all that sort of thing really.
00:01:09.701 --> 00:01:21.293
So I I like to support lots of small businesses in in different ways basically um, it's really inspiring the different food that you're highlighting on there.
00:01:21.334 --> 00:01:32.240
It's one of the main reasons we want to reach out to you, because, I mean, it's beautiful just going through your instagram feed and your videos are engaging and inspiring.
00:01:32.240 --> 00:01:34.625
What originally got you into it?
00:01:34.625 --> 00:01:36.929
Um?
00:01:39.352 --> 00:01:48.102
so my barbecue journey like every kid is into barbecue because their dads do it and things like that, so that it started way back then.
00:01:48.102 --> 00:01:50.326
But it really started, believe it or not.
00:01:50.326 --> 00:01:57.584
Uh, with a gas barbecue for my um, for my 30th um, and that was going well.
00:01:57.584 --> 00:02:19.631
I had one of these big outback um six burner gas barbecues and somewhere I read or I watched a video about you could smoke on a gas barbecue and I tried it and it sort of worked and I was really enjoying it and I was getting up at you know four in the morning to put whatever on and that went, went really, really well.
00:02:19.631 --> 00:02:24.064
And then I got given a water smoker.
00:02:24.064 --> 00:02:26.008
Are you guys familiar with those little things?
00:02:27.550 --> 00:02:31.828
I'm not A water pan, no, so it looks a bit like R2-D2.
00:02:31.828 --> 00:02:46.370
So it's kind of yeah, it's sort of that shaped, and then you have, effectively, a bowl at the bottom with fire and then you have a bowl over it that has water in it which helps control the temperature, moisture, all that sort of thing.
00:02:46.370 --> 00:02:54.610
And then you normally have a grill, another grill and then R2's head, basically, and it was one of these cheapies off of Amazon.
00:02:54.610 --> 00:02:57.849
So the airflow and the design was absolutely shocking.
00:02:57.849 --> 00:03:05.439
It was one of those where you commit to it, you're down on your hands and knees and you are blowing until your chicken hits temperature, and that sort of thing.
00:03:05.439 --> 00:03:10.409
And I really enjoyed it, to be honest, even though it was hard work.
00:03:10.409 --> 00:03:23.085
And that then led on to me rescuing uh, I rehomed an offset smoker off of facebook and this blesser, this lady she had it on facebook for I think it was 10 pounds.
00:03:23.085 --> 00:03:26.051
She'd mounted it on backwards to the trolley.
00:03:26.051 --> 00:03:28.825
It was in a terrible, terrible sort of state.
00:03:28.825 --> 00:03:40.320
So I kind of, you know, I did it up, uh, repainted it, put a new shelf on it, put, put a little sticker on there and, um, to this day, that is my favorite way of smoking.
00:03:40.320 --> 00:03:47.633
In my opinion, offset smoking is the best way and the cleanest way to actually smoke food.
00:03:47.633 --> 00:04:19.668
And then, by that point, someone had said, oh, you should go on Instagram and I kind of I wasn't really up for it at the time and you know it was too many people taking selfies and all this sort of thing but I did, and then I got swallowed by the animal itself and, but I did, and then I got swallowed by the um, by the animal itself, and then the brand started coming and I teamed up with, uh, somerset grills which you can probably see one behind me and um, and and then, yeah, then then things snowballed basically.
00:04:19.668 --> 00:04:23.423
So that's kind of how I got into barbecue and just, I guess, the love of.
00:04:23.504 --> 00:04:26.713
I never really enjoyed cooking inside.
00:04:26.713 --> 00:04:42.853
I think anyone who cooks outside without being sexist, like most blokes, like that, there's some fantastic up and coming female barbecuers and things like that, but there's just something about cooking outside for me, with fire.
00:04:42.853 --> 00:04:57.031
So one route that I never went down, I never really went down the whole green egg or um or joe route, um, so for me, even though they're the comados, I call that lid down cooking and it just doesn't excite me.
00:04:57.031 --> 00:04:58.497
Um, there's nothing wrong with it.
00:04:58.497 --> 00:04:59.860
They're amazing bits of kits.
00:04:59.860 --> 00:05:05.271
I do have a comado I've got a barrel comando over there but for me I like the.
00:05:05.271 --> 00:05:07.541
I like the meat or the veg, whatever it is.
00:05:07.541 --> 00:05:08.403
I want to see it.
00:05:08.403 --> 00:05:15.245
I want to see it sort of change from raw to to golden and caramelize and eventually burn um.
00:05:15.245 --> 00:05:19.434
So that's that's, I think, the technical term is charred, isn't it?
00:05:20.740 --> 00:05:21.362
well, it depends.
00:05:21.362 --> 00:05:24.630
It depends on how far you take the chart, I suppose.
00:05:24.630 --> 00:05:27.557
But I I then, um.
00:05:27.557 --> 00:05:39.300
So my background I'm actually in recruitment, I'm a director in a firm in bristol and whilst all that was going on, that was quite stressful, um, being in that that sort of sales environment and part of what I was doing.
00:05:39.300 --> 00:05:49.233
I was getting up on a normally a saturday morning or sunday, sometimes in the week actually, and there was actually a guy over in, uh, america, you might have heard him.
00:05:49.233 --> 00:05:50.899
Have you heard of sasquatch barbecue?
00:05:51.461 --> 00:05:54.988
yes absolute legend of a bloke loved to meet him.
00:05:54.988 --> 00:05:57.620
His thing was he tossed the butter over his shoulder.
00:05:57.620 --> 00:05:58.682
It would land in the pan.
00:05:58.682 --> 00:06:06.675
So he was part of my inspiration, um, and I thought I could do that.
00:06:06.675 --> 00:06:18.947
I haven't quite got the Canadian backdrop that he had, but my goal was to kind of find some nice places, so I'd look for rivers and lakes and waterfalls.
00:06:18.947 --> 00:06:26.620
I'm in Bristol so I've actually done one right underneath the flyover looking at at suspension bridge and things.
00:06:26.620 --> 00:06:27.725
Where are you guys based?
00:06:28.567 --> 00:06:29.430
so it's?
00:06:29.430 --> 00:06:34.387
Yeah, it's a good question, ipswich, but I'm originally from wales, so I know bristol quite well.
00:06:34.387 --> 00:06:36.853
Yeah, and I used to do a lot.
00:06:37.475 --> 00:06:43.307
I used to do a lot just looking out over the seven and things like that, so it was very much therapy like fire.
00:06:43.307 --> 00:06:47.795
Cooking to me is is therapy and it's just fun.
00:06:47.795 --> 00:06:50.067
And it doesn't always go right, does it?
00:06:50.067 --> 00:06:51.752
You know, a lot of things go wrong.
00:06:52.636 --> 00:06:54.822
Um, we'll come on to that later.
00:06:54.822 --> 00:06:59.612
Yeah, yeah, all right that's half the fun though that's how I fell into it.
00:06:59.612 --> 00:07:06.750
It sort of engulfed me and and where did the other elements come in?
00:07:06.750 --> 00:07:13.836
So obviously you know, like you said, uh, kind of when in introducing yourself it's, it's about that kind of lifestyle.
00:07:13.836 --> 00:07:20.291
So it's barbecue, but you're also talking about shooting as well as so supporting local business in the name.
00:07:20.593 --> 00:07:23.341
I virtually pulled out my backside at the time.
00:07:23.341 --> 00:07:32.930
You know, when you're setting up an Instagram account I mean, even that process was new to me at the time and obviously you've got to choose a name.
00:07:32.930 --> 00:07:35.194
I don't know where it came from.
00:07:35.194 --> 00:07:46.254
I started searching and it was available, so I went with it, and then, when I was rolling with it for a while, I thought, well, I'm not a hunter.
00:07:46.254 --> 00:07:49.625
Um, even though I'm from the countryside, my parents were always sort of white collar, really.
00:07:49.625 --> 00:08:05.071
Um, but what I wanted to do and another massive, massive sort of part of the journey was there's a pub on the outskirts of Bristol and we were going there for a work incentive was like a, a really nice meal.
00:08:05.071 --> 00:08:09.427
Um, you know 10, 10 plates or whatever, with wine, flight and all that.
00:08:09.427 --> 00:08:18.360
And we jumped onto the website and I was really, really inspired because they had listed every single uh supplier that they use on there.
00:08:18.360 --> 00:08:33.594
So down to the ice cream, to the cutlery, the plates, the knives that the chef used like literally everything was there to try and support all of the, the different brands, and I made a connection that I didn't want to be.
00:08:34.160 --> 00:08:35.243
I thought at one point.
00:08:35.243 --> 00:08:38.551
I wanted to kind of be like a food um blogger.
00:08:38.551 --> 00:08:40.904
You know people that take pictures of their plates and things.
00:08:40.904 --> 00:08:42.009
Nothing wrong with that.
00:08:42.009 --> 00:08:49.113
But what I wanted to do is I was more interested in how did the food get on the plate and who are the people behind the food.
00:08:49.113 --> 00:08:56.211
And one of the companies who were listed on the website was actually one of my friends who makes ice cream, um.
00:08:56.211 --> 00:09:03.802
Another one was a quite a, quite a well-known knife maker and things like that, and I just thought, well, if they're doing it, other people are doing it.
00:09:03.802 --> 00:09:18.625
And what I would then try and eventually do is I would try and just get hold of them and just say love what you're doing, I'd love to come and see you, um, and and perhaps take some pictures and make some films and things like that, and that's that's.
00:09:18.625 --> 00:09:38.628
That's then one side of it, where I go out to small businesses and effectively try and put a little bit of promo together for them, cost-free, but at the same time I'm learning about what it is that they're doing and generally I'll go home with a bottle of something or a packet of something you know, that that they've made, and then I can then produce a little bit more content around it.
00:09:39.409 --> 00:09:45.419
So, that's so, that's that, and then so, hunter, gatherer, cooking was never meant to actually be anything.
00:09:45.419 --> 00:09:53.274
And then one oh sorry, the middle part is when I tried to fudge what I thought the name could be.
00:09:53.274 --> 00:10:04.493
I, I told people and I did believe this is that the modern um person, um, doesn't obviously hunt with bows and arrows and rifles and things like that.
00:10:04.493 --> 00:10:07.144
That's a very small percentage of the population.
00:10:07.144 --> 00:10:17.302
And I thought, well, it's a little bit cheesy, but we hunt with our debit card and our credit card and we go online and we buy these things and our weapon is our bit of plastic.
00:10:17.302 --> 00:10:28.868
And then, of course, lockdown came and all of the farm shops, all of the food and drink producers suddenly started doing home delivery, and so it was a little bit more relevant.
00:10:28.868 --> 00:10:37.250
It was very, very relevant, and so I did a little bit about finding amazing farm shops, and farm shops vary across the country.
00:10:37.250 --> 00:10:51.105
You know, you've got places like Daylesford which are like the Harrods of farm shops, all the way down to a farmer with a wooden cart, you know, just selling off a little bit of fruit and veg or whatever it is that they've got, and I really enjoy it.
00:10:51.105 --> 00:11:00.912
I really, really enjoy going out, finding new farm shops, seeing the different products, seeing the small brands coming up, because the British brands seem to be growing.
00:11:00.912 --> 00:11:02.644
Hopefully they're.
00:11:02.644 --> 00:11:03.788
You know they're doing well.
00:11:05.720 --> 00:11:16.648
And then about three years ago, just well, well, three and a half years ago, I was due to go to an estate in bristol and I had a message from a guy and he said, would you like to go on a deer stalk?
00:11:16.648 --> 00:11:19.761
And I was like, yeah, that would, that would be amazing.
00:11:19.761 --> 00:11:22.748
And um, I said he's.
00:11:22.748 --> 00:11:25.494
I remember the day he said um, can you make Thursday?
00:11:25.494 --> 00:11:28.249
I said I can't Thursday cause I'm going to the estate.
00:11:28.249 --> 00:11:31.269
And he said, well, I'm the estate manager for that, so let's just meet.
00:11:31.269 --> 00:11:43.428
So we, we met up, um, I had a tour of the estate, uh, for what I was doing with them, and then met up with Matt Um, and we hit it off instantly.
00:11:43.428 --> 00:11:45.394
You know, know, it's like two kindred spirits.
00:11:45.394 --> 00:11:49.384
Um, massively inappropriate conversations almost instantly.
00:11:50.086 --> 00:11:55.225
And, um, he took me out on a deer stalk and it was a absolute eye-opener.
00:11:55.225 --> 00:11:58.313
Um, so many firsts that night.
00:11:58.313 --> 00:12:00.340
I've never, I'd never, heard a gun being fired.
00:12:00.340 --> 00:12:07.980
Um, never seen an animal been shot, never seen an animal get processed, um, you know, and gutted and things like that.
00:12:07.980 --> 00:12:22.374
And I was just in absolute awe and I just found it fascinating the skills that he had to actually to to do, to do it, the um, I suppose, the guts of actually doing it.
00:12:22.374 --> 00:12:24.466
You know he's got the conviction to do it.
00:12:33.760 --> 00:12:37.472
And then I started questioning around you know again the brands, you know which companies are supporting him and things like that.
00:12:37.472 --> 00:13:01.053
And luckily, through, through fate he was, he had a lot high end kit and so that was a new focus for me was actually, you know, that kit and equipment, the sights, the thermals, all that sort of thing that enables him to take a safe shot, which sounds a bit daft because you're killing an animal, but the last thing anyone would want to do would be to injure the animal.
00:13:01.053 --> 00:13:06.101
They would rather completely miss and it just runs off and you know you go another day.
00:13:06.101 --> 00:13:08.668
Um, what, what all?
00:13:08.668 --> 00:13:17.533
Um, stalkers it's a weird one, they call them stalkers in this country, but I'll say hunters for now um, they want them to drop instantly.
00:13:17.533 --> 00:13:21.504
They don't want them to to feel anything, they don't want to know about anything.
00:13:21.504 --> 00:13:37.888
And the deer that was shot on the night that I was out it was in like a bowl and when we approached the deer, obviously it was dead and it had a dandelion in its mouth and that is the last thing it knew.
00:13:38.841 --> 00:14:15.988
And then when you compare that to the meat processing industry, where animals are taken from the field, taken from their family, as it were, put onto the back of a lorry which it's probably never been on, may or may not have food and water, sent to a place that must look and sound absolutely horrific, probably to meet a horrific end, I kind of made a decision that I quite like the other version of that, where they're out in the field and they know nothing about it, and something happened I don't know about about two years ago.
00:14:16.048 --> 00:14:18.133
Just less than two years ago, I switched.
00:14:18.133 --> 00:14:38.893
I never planned to take a shot and one day I just said I want to this and I applied for my license, took nearly a year to get it, and then I wanted to take it even further and get my own rifle and then a few weeks back, I ended up shooting my first deer with that rifle.
00:14:38.893 --> 00:14:51.153
I shot my first one a while ago up in Scotland, but it's just been an absolutely incredible journey, learning everything around that and harvesting your own food.
00:14:51.153 --> 00:14:58.326
There is just no other sensation like it, absolutely nothing like it.
00:14:58.326 --> 00:15:00.125
Have you guys done anything similar?
00:15:01.590 --> 00:15:10.250
No, no, it's a short answer and again's one unity take it um.
00:15:10.631 --> 00:15:22.326
I've been on like a course where they were kind of shooting rabbits, and I was there for the whole processing of that, which was a real eye-opener.
00:15:22.326 --> 00:15:26.461
But it's not something that I've physically taken a gun and done it.
00:15:26.461 --> 00:15:27.504
I think it.
00:15:27.504 --> 00:15:50.967
A lot of people have strange feelings about it, but it gives you a very different respect for the animal and the meat and I totally connect with the clean kill concepts that you're talking about as well and how it's far less stressful for the animal than what's happening across the country, across the globe.
00:15:50.988 --> 00:16:00.802
Yeah, there's a lot of people when you talk about the food industry and and um abattoirs and things like that, the first thing they do is la, la, la, la la.
00:16:00.802 --> 00:16:03.008
They don't want to know and I do get that.
00:16:03.008 --> 00:16:04.049
I get that completely.
00:16:04.049 --> 00:16:39.186
But when I had shot my first deer with my rifle recently, it was a really unique feeling because even though I literally literally had blood on my hands I almost felt like I didn't, because that meal was not going to be part of the abattoir journey I could safely say that that animal didn't suffer and it was really nice, because the I always get this wrong RN, is it RNLI?
00:16:39.186 --> 00:16:40.971
The lifeboats or RLNI?
00:16:40.971 --> 00:16:49.868
Anyway, the lifeboats, I did, I did a barbecue for them last week for their 200th anniversary and we took the two haunches from the venison.
00:16:49.868 --> 00:16:58.749
And you know I was telling people I shot that and you know it didn't suffer in any way and yeah, it was a fantastic, fantastic night, fantastic meal.
00:16:59.250 --> 00:17:00.312
But to be able to stay?
00:17:00.312 --> 00:17:09.387
What sort of reaction did you get when you you, when you say I shot this you, you know people kind of taken back by it, or they were loving it.
00:17:09.729 --> 00:17:13.363
Um, you know, they said all first of all is, is that venison?
00:17:13.363 --> 00:17:14.645
And I said yes, it is.
00:17:14.645 --> 00:17:17.251
And then they said, well, where did you get it from?
00:17:17.251 --> 00:17:29.746
And I said I actually I shot that locally recently, um, and then started telling them and then actually, you know, we ended up looking at pictures and things like that and it's, um, it's, it's, it's a weird one.
00:17:30.287 --> 00:17:37.643
Um, my biggest thing is I hate waste, absolutely hate waste.
00:17:37.643 --> 00:17:50.105
That most of what I've I found is that even with um, games of pheasants and things like that, not a lot gets wasted as far as I can tell.
00:17:50.105 --> 00:17:56.486
It usually ends up being used, goes into the sort of the A food chain, whether it's human or animal.
00:17:56.486 --> 00:17:57.769
It usually ends up somewhere.
00:17:57.769 --> 00:18:02.222
But end of last year I was nominated for award with Eat Game.
00:18:02.242 --> 00:18:30.374
Last year I was nominated for award with Eat Game and I was in for best educator, which felt really, really weird because at that time, I mean, I still don't know much, but at that time I kind of knew even less and it felt weird to be up for an education type award when, you know, I'm an absolute amateur myself.
00:18:30.374 --> 00:18:39.170
But they explained it to me eventually and it was because what I'm, what I am trying to do, is I am trying to educate more people about one how good game is.
00:18:39.170 --> 00:18:46.303
You know the benefits of everything and just you know how much we actually have of it, and people don't realize it.
00:18:46.303 --> 00:19:00.538
We seem to be stuck on chickens, cows, pigs, lamb, you know all the usual farmyard stuff, but yet we don't eat um pheasant, rabbit, deer, um duck, uh geese.
00:19:00.538 --> 00:19:01.761
You know all of this sort of thing.
00:19:01.761 --> 00:19:02.785
That's, that's out there.
00:19:02.785 --> 00:19:04.790
We don't, for some reason.
00:19:04.871 --> 00:19:14.926
It's, you know, a bizarre food fashion were you kind of always into game and eating game fairly regularly before this journey, or is it just a part of the journey?
00:19:15.027 --> 00:19:18.354
no, I was, uh, I was part of the.
00:19:18.354 --> 00:19:29.548
I was part of the assumption, I suppose, that that game you know, venison is for Christmas and game is, you know a lot of people.
00:19:29.548 --> 00:19:30.269
What's it like?
00:19:30.269 --> 00:19:37.450
Is it gamey it can be, it depends on how long it's been hung for.
00:19:37.450 --> 00:19:57.151
But I mean, we went to the game fair the other week and one of the well, the best thing I ate there and probably the best thing I'd had for a year or so was there was pheasant goujons and they were absolutely spectacular.
00:19:57.151 --> 00:20:00.891
They were mind blowing how good these goujons were.
00:20:00.891 --> 00:20:14.970
I'm going to do some here and try and replicate one of their recipes, but you know their their particular recipe, that for the outside and the sort of you know deep fat fried pheasant goujons, they were just phenomenal, absolutely phenomenal.
00:20:14.970 --> 00:20:21.896
Um, and then there was a venison burger which, well, it definitely was the best burger I've ever had.
00:20:21.896 --> 00:20:22.960
The flavor was unreal.
00:20:22.960 --> 00:20:24.304
They just absolutely nailed it.
00:20:25.086 --> 00:20:27.825
But you know, I don't just obviously eat game.
00:20:27.825 --> 00:20:30.655
I still enjoy steak and pork and everything else.
00:20:30.655 --> 00:20:39.993
But what I'm trying to do is I try and I try and source the meat, um, you can't say, as ethically as possible.
00:20:39.993 --> 00:20:45.192
You know, I try and go to a farm shop, that sort sort of supporting, like sort of eat local.
00:20:45.192 --> 00:20:53.989
And I do talk to the butchers and I do ask where it's come from and I, yeah, it's nice when it says, yeah, it comes from two miles up the road or whatever.
00:20:53.989 --> 00:20:57.547
So I'm trying to sort of do all that.
00:20:57.547 --> 00:21:02.310
Really, I'm trying to get into an abattoir to actually see what it's like.
00:21:02.310 --> 00:21:10.875
I think it will be a horrific experience, but I'd weirdly like to put myself through it just to say I've done it.
00:21:11.578 --> 00:21:14.849
Yeah, I've got friends who've worked in.
00:21:14.849 --> 00:21:27.573
They went out traveling to Australia and they worked in an abattoir for a period and they both said it changed their perspective completely on food.
00:21:27.573 --> 00:21:52.980
One of them went vegetarian pretty much instantly, yeah, and the other pretty much tries to source their meat in the most ethical way possible, to the point of asking butchers where it was processed and everything in the first place and and I would be, I'd be interested in how I felt afterwards, like it could completely change you, couldn't it?
00:21:53.942 --> 00:22:06.411
um, I'd like to think I I wouldn't stop eating meat because obviously I enjoy it, but, um, it would be memorable, definitely, um, yeah, so, um, you know.
00:22:06.411 --> 00:22:09.320
So now the the idea is that I want to go out.
00:22:09.320 --> 00:22:23.462
I want to shoot more deer for myself I'm not not looking to go commercial with that at all, um, but to to sort of string it up here, um, and to, um, to skin it, put it on the butcher's block and slap it straight on the grills.
00:22:23.462 --> 00:22:24.364
Basically, that's.
00:22:24.364 --> 00:22:41.064
That's, that's my kind of dream at the moment, whilst making loads of content and trying to share ideas and create a few different habits, I suppose and I saw on your uh website that you can also you do some like classes or live fire cooking.
00:22:41.084 --> 00:22:43.450
You potentially go to other people's houses as well.
00:22:43.450 --> 00:22:54.285
So in terms of kind of your educating about game and and uh, that kind of lifestyle as well, do you bring that to your kind of cooking sessions?
00:22:54.285 --> 00:22:56.368
Whether you're going to someone's house or not.
00:22:56.951 --> 00:23:00.707
Yeah, so, depending on what they want to cook, I'll always say you know what?
00:23:00.767 --> 00:23:02.089
What do you want to eat, you know?
00:23:02.089 --> 00:23:03.209
Do you want to cook game?
00:23:03.209 --> 00:23:03.962
Most people, most people, go for it.
00:23:03.962 --> 00:23:04.664
To be fair, most people haven't cooked it.
00:23:04.664 --> 00:23:04.826
You know what.
00:23:04.826 --> 00:23:05.328
What do you want to eat, you know?
00:23:05.328 --> 00:23:05.574
Do you want to cook game?
00:23:05.574 --> 00:23:06.313
Most people, most people go for it.
00:23:06.313 --> 00:23:08.855
To be fair, most people haven't cooked it.
00:23:08.934 --> 00:23:13.963
You know this perception that it's, it's dry or it will dry out, which it will.
00:23:13.963 --> 00:23:18.551
But I cook, I cook all meat the same.
00:23:18.551 --> 00:23:25.693
Basically, you know, you cook to temperature, um, I cook to color and and, effectively, dryness.
00:23:25.693 --> 00:23:29.125
So I like to keep basting it to keep it sort of moist and things like that.
00:23:29.125 --> 00:23:33.203
But if you cook to temperature within reason, you can't really go wrong.
00:23:33.203 --> 00:23:36.895
Um, it's only if you keep going and going and going.
00:23:36.895 --> 00:23:40.723
Yeah, you've absolutely murdered it and it's um, it's bone dry.
00:23:40.723 --> 00:23:44.048
But again, like game for me.
00:23:44.048 --> 00:23:49.885
I don't like it too gamey, so I don't want something that's been hung up for ages and ages.
00:23:49.885 --> 00:23:50.890
Some people love it.
00:23:50.890 --> 00:23:54.903
They love it when you know their, their venison and their pheasant honks.
00:23:54.903 --> 00:23:57.328
But that's, that's too much for me.
00:23:57.328 --> 00:23:59.192
I like it to, I like it to be meaty.
00:23:59.192 --> 00:24:04.666
Basically, yeah, and it's got you know, and it's it's got its own know and it's it's got its own flavors.
00:24:05.989 --> 00:24:09.634
And this journey has led me to meet with chefs.
00:24:09.634 --> 00:24:13.442
One in particular, jose Suto, is a game chef.
00:24:13.442 --> 00:24:17.248
His knowledge is absolutely phenomenal.
00:24:17.248 --> 00:24:31.932
He's the type of guy that can not only shoot it himself, he can tell you the ancestry of all of the species and he can cook it up and and prepare a, you know, a really top level feast as well.
00:24:31.932 --> 00:24:43.652
So there's, you know, we've just got into this habit of um, of of eating set food and going back to barbecue, because this is really what this should be about.
00:24:44.874 --> 00:24:52.893
I've got this, not theory, but I've got this thing at the moment where, um, I'm not against barbecue rubs, by the way, I I love them.
00:24:52.893 --> 00:24:58.561
I've used, I've used tubby toms tonight and it was spectacular actually I can't remember what it was called, but it was really good.
00:24:58.561 --> 00:25:22.148
But I've got this thing where I wonder if we are going for so many rubs because our meat has got boring, so, like chicken, for example, I've just had a lovely pasture-raised one full of flavour, but that's completely different to a supermarket one, and that's just purely because it's been living outside.
00:25:22.148 --> 00:25:23.486
It's been scratching around.
00:25:23.486 --> 00:25:32.612
It's twice, if not three times, as old as the other one, and I wonder whether our soil qualities have dropped.
00:25:32.612 --> 00:25:37.023
Um, you know, do our animals not taste as good?
00:25:37.023 --> 00:25:40.710
And therefore we load up on on rubs and things like that.
00:25:41.751 --> 00:25:50.628
I did a an open day at a farm and he had some pasture-raised chicken wings, basically, and all we did is we salt and peppered them.
00:25:50.628 --> 00:26:02.351
That's that's all it was, and we just did them on the grills until they were golden and crispy and we we served them up and people's like lids literally flipped, uh, you know, and they were saying what flavor is this?
00:26:02.351 --> 00:26:06.108
And we're like it's chicken, yeah, but what did you?
00:26:06.108 --> 00:26:07.251
But what did you put on it?
00:26:07.251 --> 00:26:09.086
It's like just salt and pepper.
00:26:09.086 --> 00:26:14.990
But when you've got product, that is that good salt.
00:26:15.492 --> 00:26:20.269
You know, I'm not a bottle, I'm not a bottle.
00:26:20.269 --> 00:26:25.702
I just want to say, anyway, it should just enhance that flavor and a little bit of pepper, if you like it.
00:26:25.702 --> 00:26:40.090
Um, so, so, yeah, so for me, I actually like to do less with meat, so normally it's salt pepper, maybe a bit of garlic, probably too much butter, like I'm one of them.
00:26:40.090 --> 00:26:54.144
Unfortunately, half a block of butter's got to be used each time, but I like the meat to talk for itself, basically, and and so when I taste it, I'm tasting what that meat is like, not what the rub was that I use.
00:26:54.144 --> 00:26:56.272
That's clearly going to mask it and things like that.
00:26:56.272 --> 00:26:58.141
But, as I said, I'm not against rubs.
00:26:58.141 --> 00:27:07.213
I just I just wonder whether we we lean on that because, you know, has food got boring, basically yeah, it's.
00:27:07.954 --> 00:27:25.511
I always think it's fascinating when people at some point and I hope people listen to this, will try it make the flip to buying all of their meat from a butcher and different places and straight away, the difference in just chicken breasts when they're not pumped full of moisture and things.
00:27:25.511 --> 00:27:26.903
The color's different.
00:27:26.903 --> 00:27:35.450
Um, depending on kind of the chicken that you're buying, you'll notice that it's a completely different color and has a different feel and texture to it.
Apple Podcasts
Spotify
Overcast
PocketCasts
RSS Feed
