General Chat

Boar meat for eating is usually from the young animals (marcassins) up to a year old. The mature animals (sangliers) can be a bit tough and need a long slow cook.

As with pigs there is no special season for eating boar meat. Slaughtering follows the same rules and procedures as for pigs.

There have been a lot of escaped boars from farms which have been able to establish themselves in varying degrees from Kent to the Forest of Dean. Although few in number compared to the tens of thosands in France the public tends to get very frit of them and demand destruction of what is after all a native animal to the UK. Shame.

These free animals are usually shot but cannot legally be sold for human meat consumption. They are exceedingly difficult to track while an adult boar can often survive anything other than a bang on target shot. Thus due to the expense they are more often than not left to get on with their lives until the next time somebody complains about their garden full of imported plants and bugs gets rooted up.

The rooting activities of wild boar are essential to keep broad leaf woodland and forest in good shape.

There are few things which would improve the New Forest more than a few hundred wild boar and a hundred or so wolves as the deer over population is extreme. Another useful step would be to ban cars and motorbikes on all unclassified roads except for residents and access to pubs. Beavers too ...

Yes, Caroline :-D
Do you know the area?

Sorry only picking this up now....yes Maggiewinchester used to live literally just down the road in Dibden Purlieu !!

It is a very small world! :-D
To find a GR member who would know about Butts Ash, Langley, Holbury, in fact all the weird little joined up Hamlets in that area :-D

There was a student we called 'The Boy David' who came from Dibden.

He was a BEd student but he looked like he was not more than twelve. He must be about forty five or more now. I wonder how old he looks.

Youthful looks will be caused by the 'refreshing' fumes from Exxon Chemicals,
and the leaks from Monsanto :-D

We used to take Fred to Calshott to see the shipping. Brilliant watching them come out of Southampton Water and turn by the island.

Spent many an hour down there watching ships too. :-D

When we moved to The Waterside, the military housing at Calshot was mainly in use by the Tristan da Cunhans, who had to leave their islands due to a volcanic eruption. Two of my best friends lived there, so it was a bit of a magnet. :-D :-D

I remember that time 1961-2?

1961 I think. We moved there in 1967. A lot had returned, but quite a few with school age children stayed so the children could finish their (in particular) secondary education. They also housed immigrants/foreigh ex-servicemen and their families there too, at the time. One of my friends was Chinese Mauritian. Her dad had been in the Air Force.

Okay first off most of the rubbish air went over the water to Netley lets be honest, and the few times it didn't there was a big stink about it falling on the Waterside.
Weird hamlets....weird.....yeah you're right there were some weird ones....
Loved the area, in minutes you could be either at the beach (albeit stones not sand as a rule) or in the forest.
Dibden church has the "honour" of being the first church on mainland Britain for being bombed during WW2 ....that's todays fun fact.

Can't say I've ever tasted boar meat. Does it take like strong pork?

We've got none loose in our neck of the woods but we do have squirrels and hedgehogs in our garden and a couple of times an otter.

If a boar strays into your garden in the New Forest are you allowed to kill it for food?

Does Boar meat taste like strong pork? No. I think strong pork would taste 'off' :-(
Doesn't really taste 'porky', to my mind, but then the texture's different, so that affects how it 'tastes'.

Squirrels are quite nice in a pie. The East End Arms near Lymington used to do Game pie, that contained (whisper - squirrel) :-0

No, if anything strays into your garden in the New Forest, you aren't allowed to kill it, but you may as well say goodbye to your veg patch!!

If anything strays into your garden in the forest you're asking for trouble, because mostly it'll be the ponies and donkey !!

When did they stop burning off the gas on the refinery?

It used to be such a landmark and I remember going over Portsdown when the fleet was to be revued at Spithead for the 1977 jubilee and seeing all the ships and the flares.

Some time in the eighties must have been the time they went out.

Game pie with a kick! I'd give it a go.

When I lived in the area, (1967 - 1972) it was flaring well. Sometimes too well.....
It was over from the back of my house - probably a mile or more away, but it seemed closer....
Joys, jubilation and 'where are my clothes' when fire engines were not only screaming down the road behind, but the road in front as well - to join the resident fire brigade.....