Outside the wind is howling, the sky is grey, and rain is splattering off the windows. The view would be fantastic - if the fog would only lift. Being cosy is always a great feeling, but even more so if only half an hour previously you have been lying in a bog on the side of a mountain, trousers soaked through, and water dripping off the brim of a decidedly un-stalkerish looking flatcap. At the time I didn’t notice the rain at all, my eyes were fixed on a stag standing only 100m away, across a small hollow.
Out of nowhere at least a dozen other deer appear right in front of me and stampede away. Niall had whispered when we first arrived that there were plenty of targets to choose from, but I had been blind to them all at that point. As the adrenaline starts to subside, Niall grabs my hand and congratulates me, this was my first stag, and I have a feeling he is going to want to “blood” me. For the unaware, this is a ritual of smearing some blood from your first animal on your face. It may sound a bit barbaric, and I suppose it is, but it is also a rite of passage, so I did not mind when my face was sparsely painted a few minutes later. But the barbarism was not to end there. Whilst Niall went back to collect the ArgoCat (an eight-wheeled cross country vehicle), Eric the gamekeeper started to Gralloch the animal. Personally I think that fresh venison offal is the biggest treat, much better than the meat, so I asked Eric if he felt the same way as me. He enthusiastically agreed, and to ram the point home, he sliced off a bit of the still steaming liver and ate it. I have to say that this was a first for me – when I say fresh offal, I usually give it a couple of hours until I am back in the kitchen. But I am a sucker for new foods, not to mention the fact that I didn’t want to be outdone when it comes to offal, so I had to have a little slice too. I suppose there are one or two readers out there who have not tried five-minute-old raw liver, so for your benefit I can tell you that it does not have an awful lot of flavour, and there is a slightly bitter aftertaste. I do not think it will be a regular on my bush-menu, but for shock value it must be a winner. Next time I go stalking at home with a novice, I think this trick may be making another appearance…
The first sight of the deer after a half hour stalk had been a pair of antlers poking over the horizon, and as it turned out, it was this first animal that we ended up shooting. I must admit that when we first went over, the first thing I looked at was the head, and I was was well pleased with what I saw. It was a superb specimen and although there were “only” eight points, the antlers were in great condition, and looked almost perfectly symmetrical. Apparently here on the island of North Uist in the Outer Hebrides, there are some of the finest Red Stags available in Scotland, and therefore anywhere in the world. Although there are some huge animals (up to 22 points) on more protected estates on the mainland, the pure bred Stags here still grow to an impressive size, and Royals (12 pointers) are a relatively common sight, with a mammoth 18 point animal having been shot a few years ago. At about £1000 for a Royal, and £250/point from there on, it is not exactly cheap, but you will always have to pay for this sort of quality.
However, Deer Stalking was not actually the main reason for my trip, and if you think that it sounded wet up on the hill, compared to what I had been doing the day before it was positively a desert.
It all started about 6 months ago, when I was having lunch at 1 Lombard Street, the Michelin starred restaurant in the City of London. Jori, my charming host, had mentioned that in February she had organised a trip up to the Hebrides, with the founder of 1 Lombard Street and a journalist, where they had gone scallop diving for a day. Trying not to sound too excited, I casually mentioned that I could dive, and that the trip sounded like it was probably quite fun. “Oh, well we may be doing it again later on in the year, would you like to come?” she said. Damn right I would! With my sensible head on, I had to point out that as we are not a food magazine, it probably wouldn’t work for a whole feature. Jori: “Don’t worry, the lodge we stay in is great, and maybe you could do some stalking too?” At this point, even if it couldn’t have gone in the magazine, I would have had to pretend that I could squeeze it in anyway. Luckily, after looking into it a bit more, it seemed like a perfect trip, and so, some months later, we touch down at Benebecula airport in a little British Airways propeller plane.
““Oh, well we may be doing it again later on in the year, would you like to come?” she said. Damn right I would!”
The first thing you notice about North Uist is how open and exposed it is. There are almost no trees at all, the only real vegetation is foot-high heather, which at this time of year is in flower, and has a wonderful purple hue. A short drive later and we arrived at Langass Lodge, which is run by the husband-and-wife team of Amanda & Niall Leveson-Gower. Niall Leveson-Gower has an interesting pronunciation – I think it is the first time in my life that I have mispronounced every syllable of someone’s name! If you do ever come here, then it is pronounced Neil Looson-Goor, so be warned… The lodge itself is not at a Burg Al-Arab level of plushness, but the rooms are enormous, and very comfortably furnished. Particular mention should go to the beds, which combined with the bracing fresh air, make for some seriously deep sleeping. I say bracing, but in actually fact the weather is still incredibly mild, probably around 18˚C. It is the wind that will make you cold, but it is a choice between wind and almost certain death at the hands (or teeth) of several billion midges. I know which I prefer.
Also accompanying us on the trip is Executive Chef and co-founder of 1 Lombard Street, Herbert Berger. This is also his first trip up here, but he has been using these scallops in the restaurant for years now. One of my first questions for Herbert was why hand dived was so superior to dredged scallops. Surely, I thought, once caught in the dredge, the scallops will shut up tight, and after a short ride be pulled up onto the deck, and then go swiftly to a hungry diner’s plate. The truth is somewhat different, and Herbert, along with the help of Kevin, who actually supplies the shellfish, explains.
“One dredge can last up to three hours, and the actual net is not nice soft rope like you might imagine, it is made out of chain. During the dredge the scallops don’t just sit there and wait to be eaten, they try frantically to escape. A scallop moves by sucking in water from the front of its shell and pushing it out the back in a little jet. Of course, the dredge is pulling up a lot of mud, and general rubbish from the sea bed, and all of this will find its way into the scallops as they pump open and close. Then when they arrive at the restaurant they are all full of grit, which, even after washing, leaves a nasty taste. A hand-dived scallop is so much better, because they are picked up individually from the sea bed, and have no chance to get filled up with dirt.”
This makes sense to me, but still it seems hard to believe that men with scuba gear can collect enough shellfish to keep all the posh restaurants down south stocked up. The next day the wind is low, and as we set out on the hour long trip to the dive location the sea is smooth enough. I grew up in single outboard-engined boats, but our craft for the day is a twin engined ex-ferry. As we chug our way along, I am glad of the extra engine. We are a good distance from other people, and trying to fix a boat at sea is not everyone’s cup of tea! After a relatively uneventful journey the anchor is dropped and Herbert gets suited up. I had expected to be in a dry suit, as the water here is freezing cold, even with the help of the Gulfstream. It turns out that dry suits need special training to use, or you can end up floating on the surface like an unintentional Michelin man. After the usual faffing that passes for getting ready to dive, both Niall and Herbert disappear under the waves. We watch their progress from the surface – tell tale bubbles rising as they move around in the shallow (only 5m) water. Not too long later they reappear, Niall with a bag of at least a dozen Scallops, and Herbert with a huge grin. Getting back into a boat from a dive is never elegant, and so it proves, as our two beached whales haul themselves up and over the edge. I know that I will look equally silly when my turn comes.
My two biggest concerns were the temperature of the water, and the visibility. Herbert assures me that both are no problem at all, but as I get ready I still cannot quite believe that the wetsuit will be warm enough. I needn’t have worried at all. The wetsuit is so thick that quite honestly there is hardly any difference whether you are in the water or out of it. Well, that was the case until the back of my neck leaked a stream of freezing water all down my back, but it soon warmed up. This happened every few minutes, but as always, I try to consider it as character building. I think my character gained a few extra stories and an extension in that hour. The visibility is also perfectly fine, hardly crystal clear, but still at least 10m.
Once we are down on the sea bed, it takes a minute to see the scallops. They were not, as I expected, sitting right out in the open, rather they were actually mostly hidden under sand, and the best way to spot them is by watching out for the movement when they close up. You wouldn’t have guessed it by looking at them, but scallops do actually have eyes (about twenty in fact) and they will see you coming. Unfortunately for them it is this reaction that is so often their downfall, and I start to think maybe I have collected too many as my bag starts to fill up. I glance across at Niall a few meters away from me to see that his bag is bulging at the seams – it is almost full. Reinvigorated, I go on a bit of a frenzy to try and catch up, but when we surface a few minutes later Niall has the fuller bag. I am not too disappointed, he has been doing this for a while after all, and in fact he tells me that one day he collected about 500 by himself, in four dives. Niall has had enough, but I go down for a second go, and so at the end of the day I probably collected around 100 scallops. Now I could see how collecting them by hand is a viable business.
So now we had plenty of shellfish, it was time to try them out. Someone had forgotten to pack the Soy Sauce and Wasabi, but the impromptu scallop sashimi was delicious nonetheless, and quite unbelievably sweet. Back at the Lodge Herbert invaded the kitchen and set about preparing a couple of showcase dishes for us. The first saw the Scallops quickly seared, then served with a citrus sauce made from lemon, orange and tarragon. Once again the sweetness of the flesh was fantastic, and perfectly offset by the acidic sauce. The texture of these scallops is also quite different to what I have eaten before, it is much closer and denser, but not at all chewy. The second dish was totally different. First of all Herbert made a soup from the roe and skirts (basically everything inside a scallop that is not the white flesh), flavoured with saffron and Pernod. This hot broth is then poured over thin slices of uncooked scallop, and served with a small garnish of sliced vegetables. I always think that it is this sort of soup that really sets apart home cooks from professional chefs. It was deliciously rich and flavourful, but also subtle and not over-powering in the slightest. Not wanting to be out-done, the lodge’s own Chef then presented us with two more courses. First came a grilled mackerel with Salsa Verde, then a first for me – half a roast golden plover. This is a tiny game bird, with a deeply and darkly coloured flesh. My only problem with this dish was that after a few mouthfuls it was all gone, save for the obligatory carcass chewing. Last but not least, a poached pear with chocolate mousse and what was apparently vanilla ice cream. It tasted more like milk ice cream to me, but I thought it was quite sublime all the same. By this point everyone at the table was full to bursting point, and we retired to the bar for one or two (or possibly more) drams.
I was not alone in being transfixed – his eyes were firmly locked onto me too. My groping hand found the sodden piece of tissue I had stashed in a pocket, and without much success I tried to wipe some of the water off the scope. In the middle of my moving water from one part of the lens to the other, a voice to my left says “Quick, he’s standing up, take the shot!” The rifle is equipped with a useful little bipod on the front, meaning that from my prone position, I am in an ideal shooting position. Looking through the scope is an exercise in distinguishing different shades of blurry greys apart from each other, but the animal is still clear enough. A quick mental calculation about the very strong crosswind is dismissed half way through; I pray that I am close enough for it not to make a difference. There were to be no heroics from me today, so I aim for the biggest part of the body, just behind the shoulder – he is standing facing almost side on, slightly towards me. I know from previous experience that the trigger on this gun is superb – I have the same model Sako at home – so a quick squeeze and the deer collapses.
The next morning saw what I would consider as traditional Scottish weather – threatening clouds and a whistling wind. As we got out of the truck to start stalking, the rain came too. Slow at first, it increased until the drops hitting my face felt more like hail in the hurricane strength wind. We walked for fifteen minutes, crawled on our hands and knees for ten, and slithered like snakes on our bellies for another five. Panting like an unfit journalist, I peeped over a little ridge and…well, you know the rest from here.
So that is the whole story. It started at 1 Lombard Street, and I hope it will end there too. They are moving their fancy dining room, the Restaurant (as opposed to the Brasserie) into a larger room soon, and after it is completed in the New Year I will have to go and try it out. Fingers crossed that scallops and venison are on the menu.
