Hunters, saints and myth-makers

There are few happily lolling tongues in southwest France this hunting season. Not because of solidarity with Britain's ban on hunting with dogs (there is simple incredulity at that), but rather the result of a rabid dog from Morocco which has compromised France's rabies-free status. All dogs must now be vaccinated before being allowed to roam off the lead. Since the vaccinations are expensive, most hunting is off the menu for dogs at the moment.

But help is at hand in the form of St Hubert who, as well as being the patron saint of huntsmen, apparently cured rabies - a useful accomplishment in the 8th C when hunting dogs were highly valued. And from Benelux to Canada, but particularly in the small Belgian town of Saint-Hubert, his feast day is celebrated as joyfully as ever it was. St Hubert was one of several people who, when out hunting, encountered a stag which was about to attack. At the climax, a crucifix appeared between the stag's antlers and the huntsman was converted to Christianity (St Eustace) or mend his errant ways (St Hubert) or, in the case of Scotland's King David, founding Holyrood in Edinburgh.

Saint-Hubert is in the Ardennes, which are at their most striking in early November. Rolling hills covered with mixed beech, birch and pine are a mottle of browns interspersed with sheets of yellow and slabs of green. Morning mists and steam lift from frosty grasses to reveal the fungi that emerge after a sharp temperature drop. From the depths of the forest you may hear the scuffles of wild boar and the distant roar of a rutting stag. Dotted throughout the forest beside the small roads, the practised eye will spot tiny roadside shrines dedicated to St Hubert. There could not be more perfect hunting country.

Every year on November 3rd the green-cloaked Compagnons de Saint-Hubert proceed to the basilica followed by the scarlet-coated hunters with their hounds, the sonneurs carrying huge circular hunting horns over their shoulders, the flag-throwers and - this being Belgium - a solid contingent from the brewers' guild. During the high mass, hounds stand next to hunters in the nave, good-naturedly waving their tails and tilting their heads in recognition whenever the service is punctuated by the refrain of the hunting horns whose chords reverberate amid the soaring columns. The sound disturbs something primordial; it is impossible to remain unmoved.

After mass the hounds are sprinkled with holy water. Outside, the large square is packed with such a throng of people holding up their dogs to be blessed that the priest can hardly move amongst them: 'Glory to dog on high' indeed. If the hunters' quarry is flesh of the earth, bread is her fruit, so bread is also blessed and people bring along their own. In the case of one hungry pilgrim patiently waiting outside the basilica, only the last crust remains but it is solemnly and joyously beatified all the same. Finally the horses are blessed, round the back of the basilica to avoid the crowds. When I was there, a group of pilgrim hunters had ridden for four days to Saint-Hubert; they sang a song about the glories of hunting and its empathy with nature, and then clattered off into the frosty sunshine. At last everything has been sprinkled with holy water. Everyone is protected against rabies, good hunting is secured for the next twelve months, and now the serious part of the day can begin: eating.

Those with the foresight to book in advance enjoyed Belgium's superb restaurant cuisine, which they proudly describe as German quantity with French quality. This year the aptly named Auberge du Grandgousier (Grandgousier was Gargantua's father) offered venison cutlets with, celeriac mousse, crisp chestnuts and baked apple. Le Cor de Chasse (the hunting horn) a game pate, civet of venison and saddle of hare. My favourite game menu was L'Auberge du Sabotier which included a pudding of pheasant with sauerkraut mousse and chicory milk shake; a carpaccio of wild duck with red cabbage ice cream, and equally inventive dishes of venison, pigeon, pheasant, partridge, hare and wild duck.

Back in the square, tots of fiery genever warm cold stomachs, a great many bottles of specially brewed Cuvée Saint-Hubert are opened, and booths dispense chips with mayonnaise, bowls of spicy escargots and matoufé – a cross between an omelette and scrambled egg. Increasingly loud songs are sung by the brewers, a couple of plump women dressed in peasant costume totter unsteadily down the pavement, and the four-part conversations of the sonneurs' horns echo round the town.

The connection between religion and the elusive mystery of hunting is as old as the hills but remains something that hunters still struggle to express. The strong element of chance in hunting coupled with its importance to primitive societies inevitably produced superstition, ritual and profound respect for the quarry, indeed hunting has most of the legal attributes of a religion. The Spanish philosopher, José Ortega y Gasset, wrote a compelling meditation in the 1940s that conveys man's passionate relationship with hunting, including that Dionysiac ecstasy experienced when hunter and hunted, dog and environment become one, and he explains something of the longing in man's soul for that moment when the hunter feels he can regain, or at least experience momentarily, something in the wild animal which 'civilized' urban man has lost. It explains why almost a quarter of American hunters use bow and arrow in preference to a gun: ' I don't hunt for pleasure; I hunt because I want to become part of that world', one man told me recently.

It is this connection that leads to conflict between the seekers of Dionysos' passion and those who, never having experienced it, cannot understand the necessity for something they deem barbaric. It is akin to the gourmet who urges someone to taste something new that he is convinced will give pleasure (an oyster, perhaps chocolate, or an obscure wine) but which is met with incomprehension or even hostility.

And yet funnily enough the same folk that vociferously denounce hunting are often those who are also vocal in their abhorrence of 'factory' farming (which seems to mean almost any kind of livestock farming); who demand 'totally organic' food; who want to eat only 'wild, free, unimproved' food in preference to its 'tampered-with' counterpart. Makers of industrial foods who use flavourings like 'fruits of the forest' (which of course are nothing of the kind) exploit this yearning for the hunter-gatherer diet. But game meat, though it is undoubtedly wild, free and largely unimproved can only be the result of hunting, and furthermore isn't necessarily 'totally organic'. I am sure the woodpigeon I enjoy have often been gorging on sprayed brassicas or recently treated seed. But I wonder merely for the sake of argument since conventionally produced red meat - in the UK at any rate – will possibly have consumed less chemicals, but I don't worry unduly. A sensible risk assessment (an exercise sadly lacking nowadays) concludes that unimproved meat - warts, lead pellets and all - is what we should be eating. It is what our bodies have evolved to eat; its chemical make-up is exactly what is needed to produce lots of brain cells and a vigorous body – what more could we ask for? Residents of the Scottish Highlands should be delighted with the recent initiative to serve local venison in school canteens. One can only hope that the revolting variety of media sentimentality evoking The Bambi Syndrome does not prevent the success of this venture.

For game meats have a glorious history. From Pliny's swarms of wild quail to the loopy antics of St Bridgid's hare, from the plump venison hunted 'in the time of grease' favoured by Charlemagne to the pale-fleshed pheasant regarded by Renaissance man as the acme of sophistication, the meat of the chase is the one that excites, is romantic, is in a class apart - none more so than venison. Shakespeare poached it, Henry VIII used it to seduce Anne Boleyn, aspiring gentlemen used it as an entrée to the newly formed Royal Society, kings and statesmen gave it as gifts, venison being deemed above commerce. The stag's annual cycle of antler growth that culminates in his extravagant sexual behaviour during the rut came to epitomise not only uncontrollable lust but also nature's eternal regeneration. In early Chinese mythology deer represent longevity; they appear in fertility rituals and as the Celtic stag-god Cernunnos; they were the object of a Scythian cult and they still play a part in the Shinto religion. They were fiercely protected for the élite to hunt and kept in parks to provide the finest venison of all.

Today, though, as the number of hunters reduces, deer populations are exploding across the world. 'Eat a deer and save a tree' sounds quite a sensible slogan now.

Oh, and if you should be seduced by the game menus and suffer any damage from lead shot, it's useful to know that St Hubert cures toothache too.

Auberge du Grandgousier, Mirwart (Saint-Hubert), www.grandgousier.be

Le Cor de Chasse, saint-Hubert, Tel: +32 6-1611 644

L'Auberge du Sabotier, Awenne (Saint-Hubert) www.laubergedusabotier.be

David & GeorgeFebruary 21, 2019