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At the Horse Guards Inn in Petworth there is a seven-course game menu being appreciated
by food writers from the likes of the Sunday Times and Lovefood.com.
Once they've polished of the bullshot, game scotch quail eggs, Vietnamese-style game broth,
rabbit livers, wood sorrel and rabbit dumplings it's going to be an early night, not just
for the benefit of good digestion but because at first light they'll be up a high seat or
walking gingerly through the woods experiencing deerstalking for the first time.
Every journalist is allocated an experienced stalker.
We're joining Lucus who writes for The Sunday Times.
He is being looked after by Jack Smallman who runs South Downs Venison & Game.
It is really very exciting.
It is also really nice just being out here at this time of the morning actually.
Out among nature.
Unfortunately the weather is rubbish.
Visibility is down to just 20 yards - and although we can hear a rutting buck, there's
no chance of seeing him.
Jack has honed his own selection of calls which seem to work impersonating a new buck
on the block and a youngster.
With no chance or promise of a shot we resort to plan B.
While you are still out here, if we can we will sneak down the side of the wood and try
and come back with the wind still in our favour and try and get a visual on it.
Hopefully we will see some does and may be a pricket with them and we might get a shot.
We shall see.
The fog gives us as much of an advantage as the deer and we actually get quite close to
the group - silhouttes pass in front of us and a new buck has joined the party by the
sounds of it - antlers clash in the distance.
Incredibly a young buck - an ideal cull animal materialises out of the fog.
Jack gets set up.
He watches as opportunities come and go as the fog ebbs and flows.
As the buck passes by us broadside we prepare for the shot - but it never comes and with
good reason.
Did you see that.
When he went down there he was safe ...but like ish.
He wasn't brilliant.
Then he came up to here where I would of quite happily shot it.
I could see it with my naked eye, but through the scope could not see it.
It just vanished.
Every time I looked through it, I could just see a silhouette and I looked through the
scope I couldn't see a thing.
And when it came back here I could see it clear as day, but there was too much skyline
behind and villagers and everyone else.
I was hoping it was going to come round, and if he came across and back in to try and come
back across the track, I would have had it, but it decided to carry on up the field.
Next on the Game To Eat menu is a local pheasant shoot where we can grab a word with chef Lee
Maycock and ask him why it's important for the Countryside Alliance to drag journalists
around muddy fields and woodland.
I think they have all seen enough, read enough and heard enough so I think they just want
to do it at first hand.
Actually getting them into high seats in the mornings to get the whole experience of being
up in a high seat at 6 o'clock in the morning watching the sun come up, seeing the deer
on the horizon.
It is fantastic.
It is not the sort of thing you do every day.
So they can write from the heart when they actually put these stories together they can
actually do it as first hand experience and they can speak with depth of knowledge.
All the guests seem to be enjoying the experience.
Most of them have some understanding of the importance of game and where it comes from.
However the name of the game today is to make the meat accessible to a wider audience, and
they have the power to do that.
For me it was a real eye opener.
It was nice to see animals being taken and know that they will be used.
For me that is the most important thing to think that although this is a bit sport also
to think of it as food.
The more we can do both in food media and both in retailers and producers and other
organisations, the more we can do to promote game and make it accessible, so sometimes
people are going to be put off by trying to roast a whole pheasant bird when they are
used to a chicken.
I think we need to look at what has happened to things like duck where it has been broken
down into component parts so you have got quick things to stir fry.
People need to think a bit like that, they plan meals not necessarily ingredients.
So we need to give the consumer a broader range of choice and help and advise on recipes
sort of stuff.
And the pheasant comes from Georgia and I have been banging on all day that we can get
some interesting spices in there, we can think about star anise and cinnamon and saffron.
These are the things that come from the region where the birds are originally from so people
should think it is not just game chips.
The drive is reasonably good with the dogs working well.
Even the apply named peanut gets in on the act.
The next stop is Jack's chiller where the guys have a chance to see the deer prepared.
They are now on familiar territory and enjoy asking the butchers about cuts and preparation.
It appears the writers have had an eventful day and Lucus has embraced everything that
was on offer, even just being in the great British countryside...
As of a nation that is still, however urban we have become, still has huge sways of countryside
which are managed by people who live in the country, whether they are farmers or people
who run shoots.
That is a very important part of our national character I suppose.
And it is something that we should be preserving and supporting and looking after.
So it has been, as much as anything, it has been a lovely day out in the country actually
with an early start.
This is the second time Jack has had the opportunity to take people from the foodie press out on
field to fork adventure and he believes we are making real progress with promoting game.
I think the public are now coming round to the idea that we have got in the UK an absolutely
amazing product sat out there.
It has got to be managed.
It is not just for the quality of the deer and keeping the herd numbers under control
it is as much for looking after human and farming interests as well.
Certainly down here on the South Downs we are trying to produce that and touch wood
we are doing ok.
If you want to know more about the work of the Game To Eat campaign, visit www.countryside-alliance.org.uk
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