Game: taste and tradition

Spain is the largest exporter in the world of hunting. However, outside of the rural context and regions of great hunting tradition, hunting is a great unknown. Associations such as Asiccaza are intended to bring to the general public, cooks and Diners nutritional values and the intense taste of this meat.

Game meat is little known in Spain, but it has a very interesting nutritional characteristics. It is a completely natural product, with values fatty and caloric minimum, as it shows an investigation conducted by the University of Castilla - La Mancha and the Institute of hunting resources. In Spain, unlike other countries, the hunting breeds in freedom. The animal eats only what can get in nature, with no additives, no feed, no hormones, no antibiotics. "Making a simple comparison boar meat would be as of the best Iberian pigs, a deer would give us a better beef-like meat and our Partridge, undoubtedly, would surpass the best of our chickens in poultry", he explains to Interempresas Jaime Hurtado, managing director of the Interprofessional Association of the hunting meat (Asiccaza).

Asiccaza is currently working on a market survey on the consumption of game meat. Although the Association does not have definitive data, Hurtado says that Spain is a country exporting meat from hunting but not consumer. In fact, he says, it is the country that more hunting meat exports in the world, with Germany, France, Belgium, Holland, Portugal and Italy as main buyers. As points out, the national consumer not dares to buy game meat or products derived from it through ignorance. "Traditionally been believed that they were destined exclusively to the hunters and their families", said the director of the Association.

According to the data that handles the association, the partridge is, definitely, the queen of the table, regarding lower hunting, so much in the surroundings of the rural hunter, that is to say, in the home, as in the catering. Of the greater hunting, the most consumed, explains the director manager of Asiccaza, is the deer, that practically only tastes in catering. “But the consumptions are minimum”, puntualiza.

Stolen difference between the hunting for autoconsumo and the one who commercialises . The autoconsumo is the meat that does not commercialise , that is to say, the one who consumes the own hunter that has hunted it or by his familiar surroundings. “This is very common in those rural zones of tradition cinegética”. “Therefore —it explains the manager of Asiccaza— if we have to differentiate in geographic zones I would limit it more to the villages, being these the ones of greater consumption and lower in the big cities”.

According to a study presented by the Ministry of Agriculture, Feeding and Environingingment, the consumption of meat of hunting has increased 4% in this last year. “With the crisis the people has gone back to his habits and consumes more meat of hunting in the homes although very presumably because of the autoconsumo and no to the purchase of these products in skilled shops. But it is good and is our aim, that the people restart the interest by all the rural, the from the field, of the child in extensivo”, affirms Stolen.

Project Solidario Meat of Hunting

Asiccaza llevar activities solidarias like the donation of meat of hunting to the neediest. Like this, the Project Solidario Meat of Hunting consists in this, in periodic donations of meat of hunting through agreements with the Spanish Federation of Banks of Foods (Fesbal) and with Caritas “that do to arrive the product to those that worse are happening it and more need it”, aims Stolen. “They are perishable products that very few people dona and does fault, today more than ever, this support of charity. I want to appreciate to the sector of the hunting what is dumping with our project as they are increasingly the particular those that allocate the meat of his cotos so that they are donadas through our project solidario”.

On the consumption of meat of hunting plans from does a time the shadow of his possible risk toxicológico by lead. In this sense, Stolen difference between the lead of the meat of hunting like consequence to having been hunted with lead and the one who of natural form have all the meats and, therefore, also the one of hunting. In any of the two cases exists risk for the health because the first, the one who could remain in the piece like consequence of the shot, detect it the detectors of metal that have all the rooms of despiece. In the second case, the physiological lead, although they accumulate something more than the meats of supply, are values totally tolerable, as they show several studies, between them, one of the University of Córdoba.

“Has confused a lot to the final consumer, but the hunting is one of the safest meats from the sanitary ware punto”, sustains Stolen. In the case of the greater hunting, are two, at least, the veterinary controls to which subject the pieces: one in field and another in the rooms of despiece. “Therefore, that was calm the consumer, as all the meat of hunting that commercialises goes through sanitary ware controls very strict”, adds.

In spite of his inconfundible flavour and his nutritional properties seems that the meat of hunting is not implanted in the Spanish hospitality industry. In some regions essentially hunters like Ciudad Real or Toledo himself is usual to see in the letters of the restaurants dishes of meat of hunting but the majority lack they. For this reason, Asiccaza collaborates with the Provincial Association of Employers of Hospitality industry and Tourism of Ciudad Real (APEHT) to boost the consumption of this meat. “With this type of activities encourage to the channel of the hospitality industry and the catering to that they do not shelve this culinary option so interesting”, argues Stolen. A good meat has to go accompanied of a good wine. Thus, the association also has formalised an agreement with the Foundation Tierra of Viñedos, whose aim is to promote and ensure the presence of the wines and mostos of the Autonomous Community of Castile-La Mancha in Spain and in the international markets. “A good meat has to go accompanied of a good wine. We have created this simbiosis between both sectors to promote our products of conjoint way, and is working very well”, affirms the director of Asiccaza.

Jaime Hurtado, encourages consumers and diners to buy and enjoy the benefits of our hunting. "I am a Hunter and I like to cook and eat what you hunt with friends around a table while we talked. Pickled in general, hunting meat, fascinates me! "."

Asiccaza is a non-profit association that is cream with the object to assume the representation and defence of the common interests of the producers and industrial of the sector of the meat of wild hunting. Therefore, Asiccaza, explains his director manager, Jaime Stolen, “is integrated by those that contribute meat of hunting to the chain of the commercialisation, that is to say, the headlines of the terrains of hunting and the associations that represent them and, on the other hand, the distinct rooms of despiece of Spain that they are those that treat the meat and commercialise it for afterwards give him gone out in the market”.