Hunter Gather Cooking School Camp Out Adventure with Marcus Wareing

Hunter Gather Cooking School Camp Out Adventure with Marcus Wareing?

Nicola Harper, Senior Sous Chef at 14forty

?At the beginning of March, my fellow chefs and I had our fourth workshop on the Forward with Marcus Wareing Programme.

This workshop had a unique feel about it as soon as I read the brief for the next two days. Immediately what drew my attention were the words “Camp Out”, in March – this was either a brilliant idea or could turn out really bad if the weather was typically British!?

From the previous Forward workshop, we had discussed how being in the outdoors and in nature can help to improve mental health and well-being, so we were all looking forward to a new experience.?

Jodie, Amy, Darren, Lee, Matt, Jernimain Barry and I were brave enough to camp for the two nights in traditional canvas tepee tents in the middle of the Sussex countryside. We would be completely off grid for the next few days, no electricity, and no creature comforts.?

We arrived on the Sunday evening just after sunset, so it was dark. The walk up to the camp was an adventure in itself but we made it safely and was such a relief to see such beautiful set up with the tepee tents, the stars shining in the sky, the campfire roaring on and a beef stew cooking ready to warm us up as it was freezing cold! We had enjoyable an evening sitting around the campfire chatting until the fire burnt out.

Waking up to the fresh air and breezy wind on a Monday morning was a wake-up call to say the least, but after having a good night’s sleep we were all raring to go. We walked up to the Hunter Gather Cooking school which was approximately a 20-minute walk from the camp site. However, after being told we were having steak and eggs for breakfast, we maybe walked a little bit faster!

?Day One – Fire Workshop

After the amazing breakfast in the barn, we were given an outdoor knife, a fire starter and some cooking books. To kick off the days workshop, we discussed the plan of action for the day.?

We began outside around a fire pit with an introduction to fire. This included demonstrations of how to create fire, how to control the fire in terms of cooking processes, cooking dirty with the fire and how to add flavour to dishes using fire. This took us up to lunch time but giving us plenty of time to practice creating fire ourselves.

After lunch we went on a 2-hour foraging trip exploring the wild food and other wilderness wonders on offer around the areas of the Hunter Gather Cooking school. Lucky this time the weather was on our side and was a beautiful walk around the area. We collected a few items that we could use to be creative with our evening meal that we were going to be preparing back in the barn kitchen.

We walked back through to the barn after our foraging session to be faced with two dead deer’s hanging up ready for us to skin and butcher down.?

We were placed into two teams with an expert on each team and we began to skin and butcher the deer. Once the deer was fully skinned, the skins would then be then salted and made ready for tanning in which Matt and Jodie held there hands up to take this on after the workshop.

The deer was broken down into primary cuts with each chef taking on a bit of the butchery. We spent a few hours on this talking through each process in detail.

It was now time for us to practice what we had learnt throughout the day involving fire and we had free rein on all the outdoor kitchen equipment ranging from an Egg BBQ, free fire BBQ, a smoker and inside the kitchen which also had and open fire to cook dirty with. By ‘dirty’ I mean cooking just on coals.?

There was a selection of ingredients and protein options to use, we could be as creative as we wanted but the brief, we had to fulfil was a street food concept. Cooking outdoors can be very challenging, with the drawing on, it became colder and colder so no chef jackets for this cook off just jumpers, hoodies, hats, and scarfs. We were set into teams and each team created a few dishes for everyone to eat, we had smoky venison tacos with a ranch dressing, venison scotch eggs, smoked potato salad, burnt beetroot ketchup, smoked venison meatballs, dirty smoked vegetables, lots of delicious salsas, flat breads, Chard venison kebabs, Smokey cauliflower and broccoli and more. It was a real feast to top the day off and there was a sense of satisfaction today knowing we had cooked everything on outdoor equipment, starting the fires and controlling the fires to ensure food was tasty and not burnt.

As the day ended, we headed back to camp in the dark and we all bonded as we sat around the campfire. Keeping the fire going all night was our biggest aim as at this point it was extremely cold and our only source of heat was the fire.

?Day Two – Fine Dining Meal?

Today was all about us again in the kitchen, cooking with fire and creating a 4-course fine dining menu. Once again, we were in teams of 4 and 5.?

One team was on a wholesome soup and snack, one on starters, then another on mains and then we had to create a pudding. Again, another exciting challenge for each of us, still no chef jackets and just solid cooking with fire now for 5 hours with the aim of producing an outdoor fine dining experience.?

We were given a selection of proteins including the rest of the venison, pigeon, sea trout, and oysters, along with a mixture of vegetables and foraged items. To create a fine dining dinner in these conditions was extremely challenging with no actual ovens or stoves, but Ryan Holmes, Marcus Wareing and the Hunter Gather cookery team were impressed with how to we stepped up to the challenge and utilised the equipment well, keeping all the fires going throughout and produced a delightful meal.

Overall, a cold but enjoyable two days away with Marcus, we had a real cool and unique insight into cooking outdoors and how outdoor cooking can create an amazing flavour on dishes. Actually, burnt is a new flavour an exciting flavour that we should all embrace.?

Who says BBQs are just for summer time!?