ABC Newcastle Radio interview about SSAA’s Cooks Companion
ABC Newcastle Radio, 04/03/09 5.48pm
The SSAA has released a cookbook. Tim Bannister talks about the contents of the cookbook and about the health advantages of hunting over buying packaged meat. He says the book is not meant to convert people to hunting, but to remind people of where food comes from.
Garth Russell: You may have a CWA Cookbook in the bottom of one of your kitchen drawers, you may have a cookbook put together by a local school, but here’s a new one. The Sporting Shooters’ Association of Australia (SSAA), they’ve brought out their own cookbook. It’s called the SSAA’s Cooks Companion. And to tell us more about it, we’re joined by the spokesperson for the Sporting Shooters’ Association of Australia, Tim Bannister. Tim Bannister, good afternoon to you.
Tim Bannister: How are you Garth?
Garth Russell: Thanks very much for your time this afternoon. Tell us about the whole idea. Is this the first time that the Sporting Shooters’ Association have brought out a cookbook?
Tim Bannister: Yeah. The inaugural book. It’s made up of 124 pages of recipes sent in by members. It covers everything that you’ll find in the Australian wildlife: rabbit, duck, quail, pork, goat, kangaroo, deer, seafood, even damper, of course.
Garth Russell: Yes.
Tim Bannister: It’s aimed at our membership, but at the same time it’s a showcase of the end results of hunting. And they’re all obviously very healthy foods. They’re not fed chemically altered grains or anything like that. They’re straight out of natural wildlife.
Garth Russell: That makes sense. Is there a PR side to this? Is there a bit of public relations to do with having this released, you know, to the broad community?
Tim Bannister: Oh, absolutely. And we’ve sent a copy to every federal and state politician in Australia. We’ve sent quite a few to journalists like yourself. We want to get the message out there that recreational hunting provides both economic and environmental benefits and it’s just a reminder of where food does come from.
I mean, we do live in a plastic wrapped and sensitive world where we go down to Woolies or Coles and we buy our meat on a black Styrofoam packet, you certainly wouldn’t want to see the blood on it in the old white Styrofoam. And it’s just a reminder that this is where food comes from. And we believe, hunters believe, that it is much healthier for us to eat these sorts of foods and particularly ones that are not processed and as natural a product as possible.
Garth Russell: I guess the benefit of this is that there’s some - I mean, if you look at some of the recipes in here, as you said it’s - it is kangaroo, it is venison, it’s a lot of meat that a lot of people normally wouldn’t think of eating. I guess, even goat. So you’ve opened up. - you’ve even mentioned there’s seafood, there’s oysters, obviously you don’t shoot fish and oysters or prawns, but…
Tim Bannister: It wrecks the oysters.
Garth Russell: You what, sorry?
Tim Bannister: It wrecks the oysters.
Garth Russell: [Laughs] Yes, it’s very hard to pick the shrapnel out of them, I would imagine. How do you think this will be received?
Tim Bannister: Well so far very well. We’re obviously selling with our own membership. We’ve got 120,000 members Australia wide. We’ve sold over 2000 copies so far and we’ve just started the publicity now actually. So, you know, if you can sell 2000 copies of a book before actually telling everyone about it, you’re not doing too badly.
Garth Russell: So the novelty value, in a way, is obviously paying off?
Tim Bannister: Yes, that’s right. You know, we hope that journalists like yourself will take an interest and particularly, the time is right to actually educate people. Particularly, you’ve got Ross Garnaut from the Climate Change Report saying people should actually look at eating more kangaroos, it’s actually better for the environment. And obesity has popped up as a major problem in western culture. These sort of foods counter that. And fishers - fishermen and women - have known that for years, the benefits of good, clean, fresh seafood. We’re just taking it from the land, if you like. So it’s game food.
Garth Russell: How often would shooters, sporting shooters, go to the trouble of preparing and eating the food that they shoot, the animals that they shoot?
Tim Bannister: Well, almost always. And quite often people who do not understand hunting or do not understand fishing don’t see the point. They call it a sport. Well, it’s not a sport, it’s a pastime, just like fishing, it’s a recreation. And quite often you find those hunters are the ones that know the environment, that are very careful about what they take, that make sure they do the clean kill. And it’s a hell of a lot more humane than eating pork from the shop where the pig has been grown if you like, in a one metre by 80 centimetre cage or pen. This is much more ethical, we think. But really, I mean you don’t shoot a duck or a deer or a goat usually, unless you’re going to eat it. You might actually shoot a goat because it is a feral animal and quite invasive, but that is the whole point behind the exercise. There are, of course, trophy hunters. They actually are very good for the [animal] population, believe it or not, because they get rid of the main elder of the species, so they let up and comers get through to the herd. But, honestly, if you’ve ever tried fresh duck compared to packaged duck, you’d know what we’re talking about.
Garth Russell: Do you think you might, it would probably be a long shot, but do you think you might convert a few people to hunting?
Tim Bannister: I’m not sure if it’s about converting them to hunting as much as converting them to the understanding of why there are recreational hunters. And, look, New Zealand doesn’t have the same attitude to hunting perhaps as we do in Australia. Australia is very metropolitan. As you know, New Zealand is more regional and more rural and it’s completely accepted. Luckily, most of our population has no over-sensibilities with fishing. We just need to remind them of why there are hunters and what they do for the environment.
Garth Russell: From a practical point of view, if you’ve shot, particularly a small animal like a duck or a rabbit, how difficult is it then to prepare the meat without it being affected by gunpowder?
Tim Bannister: Well, you’re not going to affect it by gunpowder; you might affect it with the bullet. A rabbit, for instance, you would shoot with a head shot, the same as in an abattoir where a cow has a bolt through its head. It’s not pleasant. To those people about to have dinner, I’m sorry. A duck, well you know there are three or four small balls, if you like, that have taken that duck down. And for those who are concerned about duck populations, well, duck seasons are only ever done at the end of their natural growing season, where about 20 per cent are going to die naturally anyway out in the wild. And nature is not kind or pleasant, as we all know. We train our hunters to be very ethical and ensure one shot kills.
Garth Russell: All right. Well, it’s, as you said, it hasn’t even been promoted yet and already you’ve sold 2000 copies. I daresay there will be more coming off the shelves. But thanks for talking to us about it today.
Tim Bannister: Pleasure, Garth, and enjoy your dinner.
Garth Russell: Yeah I will. Tim Bannister, spokesperson for the Sporting Shooters’ Association of Australia with their Cooks Companion cookbook just being released.
Home > Media monitoring > 2009 > ABC Newcastle Radio interview about SSAA’s Cooks Companion