Borough market , london

biffo

Well-Known Member
Popped down to borough market, near London bridge on Friday. My oh my it's grown!
worringly I saw a lot of things that didn't sit well with me. Pheasant for sale in August! Ok, so it's legal according to revised x2007 game laws to sell out of season but none of the birds for sale were marked as frozen, or previously frozen.

I bought some some wild boar leg steaks....arm and a leg. Really disappointing given that I had taken the trouble and served them slightly pink. The meat looked just like standard pork...shouldn't wild boar be darker in colour and texture?..and these had limited flavour.

Was I ripped??
 
Popped down to borough market, near London bridge on Friday. My oh my it's grown!
worringly I saw a lot of things that didn't sit well with me. Pheasant for sale in August! Ok, so it's legal according to revised x2007 game laws to sell out of season but none of the birds for sale were marked as frozen, or previously frozen.

I bought some some wild boar leg steaks....arm and a leg. Really disappointing given that I had taken the trouble and served them slightly pink. The meat looked just like standard pork...shouldn't wild boar be darker in colour and texture?..and these had limited flavour.

Was I ripped??

i had the misfortune of having to go to that market for lunch with a client and friend a couple of years back. I had visions of it being like Smithfied market when I visited it at 3 am during a student job as a butchers assistant . instead , it was full of these pretentious Janey obular foodie type people , wearing Birkenstock sandals , £150 denim jeans , and black t shirts, it left a nasty taste in ones mouth. I can remember looking at a muntjac that had been Cut into joints and steaks and working out that if you bought them all you would have just paid about £130 for a Muntjac.
Perhaps the 'Wild boar' was more just a farmed 'wild' breed ? as opposed to a free roaming wild and aggressive , truffle guzzleing , nut chomping , mouse eating , wild boar , that's been plucked from the forest using a full bore rifle, bled on the spot and then sung over and toasted in a rural German bar. The wild boar that I' shot and ate had a closer texture than farmed pork and was similar in colour to the darker meat on a turkey, it's flavour was slightly more nutty and the fat was like barley fed fore rib beef fat. All in all quite a tasty experience !
I can recommend lunch at the market though, it will be expensive, but you get to watch some fascinating looking looking people doing their food shopping ..........,,.

kind regards, Olaf
 
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Wild boar has a very slightly darker colour than standard pork and a tighter meat structure. To me it tastes a bit like pork but has its own flavour. Hard to describe flavour :D.

I've only eaten wild boar in the 40-70kg range so can't comment on the flesh of larger wildboar.
 
I'm told that some of the guys who poach boar in the Forest of Dean have been getting together recently and piling all the boar that they have shot into the back of a van and taking up to London to sell as the prices they get are much higher there. Apparently its well worth the effort and few questions asked.
 
Wild boar has a very slightly darker colour than standard pork and a tighter meat structure. To me it tastes a bit like pork but has its own flavour. Hard to describe flavour :D.

I've only eaten wild boar in the 40-70kg range so can't comment on the flesh of larger wildboar.

this had no real flavour, bit like supermarket pork!
 
this had no real flavour, bit like supermarket pork!

It depends on what the animal had eaten and where it had been farmed or had roamed. If it's a wild pig it will eat a more varied diet and subsequently have a more defined game like flavour. The pig that I shot had been living on wild Forrest goodness and had recently been feeding on hazelnuts and chestnuts , going by its stomach contents, so it will have had a better flavour than a pig that's been fed on feed pellets and kept in an enclosure.
i saw a captive pig here in the UK recently , it was a 'pet', but could have fooled anyone into believing it was a 'wild ' pig.
I would guess that half the wild boar that people buy in the UK is actually just farm reared 'rare' breed pork. From what I understand, the wild pigs we have in the UK, are mostly just feral pigs that have escaped pig farms or been let loose at some point , owing to the fact that wild boar were hunted to extinction at some point not too long ago in this country.
I bet the Forrest of dean pigs are pretty tasty though, I also bet that they are as wild as you will ever get in the UK too.

Kind regards, Olaf
 
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My son used to go and get stuff from 'The Ginger Pig' and others. But pheasants in August. I'd wonder if they also have the parsnips and the brussels sprouts to go with it.

I don't think that roast pheasant with parsnips and brussels sprouts strikes me as an enjoyable summer dish.

Has anybody here ever tried pheasant barbecued? Urgh!
 
I was at a big music festival a fews years ago and somehow ended up wandering into the healthy eating area (god knows wot i was doing there) but ended up treating myself to a 'wild boar' burger, nothing like the baor i've shot and butchered/ate before, looked very pink and tasted completely different.
Where also offering 'wild boar' crackling, now possibly in proper slaughter houses u can take the hair of a boar as u do a pig, but i didnae think u could.

Probably only 1 out of 100'000 folk there that would have known the difference.

Once a keeper in know was invited dowm to london by his boss and were eating in some swanky restraunt, they both order partridge (as sept) but for some reason they had cooked the bird but left the legs on (dunno if that is normal) but they were serving pheasant poults


In fairness perfectly legal to kill pheasants at this time of year if in a game farm or reared for meat as just classed as stock, but at the tiny money their worth no one would ever do it
Get 3 or 4 times the game dealer value for a poult at 6-7 weeks than u would an adult at 22+ weeks, possibly u get more out of season thou, u'd need to
 
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