Food - The Royal Oak

As a kid I was very taken by Goscinny and Uderzo’s Asterix books. My father used to bring back original French versions while on his travels to help educate me, so I used to look at the pictures more than read the words. My favourite bits were the feasts at the end, when everybody would eat wild boar, while Cacofonix the bard was tied up in a tree to stop him from singing. Wild boar! It seemed like an exciting, primeval, heroic sort of meat to eat. It was a while before I tried it - I first encountered it (as ‘cinghiale’) while living in Italy. Now, of course, the animal is flourishing again in our forests and you can buy wild boar sausages at the Farmers Market. But I was still excited when, on arriving at the Royal Oak for lunch on Thursday, one of the weekly specials on the board was wild boar sausages with mash.

I don’t know how long Obelix would have taken to gobble up such a dish, but I got through mine pretty quickly. There were three large sausages on a mound of mash rising from a lake of gravy. The mash was satisfyingly lumpy - with just a hint of horse radish sauce - and the sausages were pleasantly gamey, though I’m not sure I could tell them from good pork ones in a blind taste. Still, the idea was enough for me: I’d have to eat a lot of wild boar to erase my childish enthusiasm for the stuff. I wonder what they do with the tusks? AL