What is going to be the centerpiece of my
Christmas dinner? Turkey is obviously
out due to the decided lack of these silly looking birds wandering around
central Scotland. I could opt for Roe
deer, of which there are plenty in the woodland surrounding town I live in, but
that would be a hell of a big thing to kill when the nearest I’ve ever got to
shooting a gun was a Super Soaker. There
are, however, a lot of birds in Fife, so this is where I am going to focus my
attention.
It is a rare day that I don’t have to dodge
a stupid pheasant that decides to run out in front of my car when I’m on my way
to work. Instead of braking or swerving
to avoid it causing a bird shaped dent in the front of my car, maybe I should
start aiming for them and cooking my kill.
Having said that, the thought of slightly squashed pheasant isn’t one
that particularly appeals, but there is still the option of shooting them.
Failing that, there are a lot of ducks and
geese that migrate over the estuaries that surround the Kingdom of Fife, so
shooting a few of those out of the skies might be a way to a free feast.
There are other sources of meat that roam
around wild on the east coast of Scotland.
There are rabbits all over the place that could be picked off with an
air rifle and made into something delicious.
Living on the coast, I can always take up fishing. I’m forever seeing people dangling rods into
the water off the pier outside my house so, obviously, there must be something
worth catching in the briny deep. There
is a very buoyant crab and lobster fishing community in the village I live so,
hopefully, I might be able to convince one of the fishermen to advise me on how
to catch shellfish from the shore. I
think that if I can catch a lobster or crab, I can create some sort of
shellfish starter for the meal.
So as you can see, there is a wide
selection of wild animals available that I can catch and kill, once I have the
skills to do so. A couple of geese
following a shellfish starter would be a pretty good Christmas dinner in
anyone’s book, and all the more rewarding in that I will have got the
ingredients for free.
The problem I am going to have is getting
the vegetables…
