TP: It is obvious to me and your followers that your main
passion is cooking. How did you start and how did it develop
over the years?
CAB: At the age of five, for some reason I dressed up as a
chef and that was it! Even at that age, my dad taught me to
cook a few dishes: scrambled eggs, for example. I just loved
it, and as I got older I worked in three or four local
restaurants, which I hated, as all my mates were out
enjoying themselves.
As a teenager, it was horrendous! I soon became bored,
as all we were doing was microwaving food or frying things,
but as soon as I shot my first rabbit, things changed.TP: Tell me how you started hunting?
CAB: My family were not really interested in hunting, but we
lived in the countryside and my father would take me and my
brother trout fishing with a bubble float, not fly fishing. We
loved it, but the first thing I caught was not a fish, but an eel!That was the first wild thing I got, but I made my father
cook it for me. When I was about 13, I acquired a cheap air
rifle from a local sports shop for less than £30, and to be
honest, I did not have a clue what to do with it. Even zeroing
it was a mystery, as all I did was shoot cans with my mates!
Anyway, at 15, I was shooting this air rifle on a farm near
Canterbury and shot 12 rabbits, which I thought was
amazing! At 18, I moved on to a .22 rimfire and shotgun,
and then a .243 for deer, after being mentored by a local
deer stalker.TP: Why do you hunt?
CAB: Going back to that eel, it started my obsession with
the field-to-fork concept – all about the food source, the
chase, the animal instinct, working for your dinner, as well as
the conservation and management of the countryside. At the
moment, I shoot on four different farms – it takes a lot of
work to accomplish effective management, taking what we
need to take, and letting the rest of it flourish. Balancing this
with trying to keep the landowner happy can be interesting- but that’s the same for all stalkers.
TP: Tell me about your film career.
CAB: I started Ferreting with Mark Gilchrist and then spent a
couple of years with Team Wild, and then on to Fieldsports
TV. My first film for them was shooting rabbits in blackberry
fields, used for making Ribena. Since then, I have visited
Hungary, Norway, Finland and Croatia, which is exciting,
meeting many new friends, soaking in many new
experiences. The Hunt and Cook film series promotes wild
game cooking to the wider public and not just the shooting
community. We are trying to reach people with limited
knowledge of game cooking, so I am constantly being asked
questions or having viewers copy my recipes, which is fine.TP: Where is the most interesting place you have cooked?
CAB: It has to be Norway, where I had a pop-up restaurant,
cooking for 50 local people, using red deer and lamb on an
island called Svanøy, on the west coast. It is a beautiful»
INTERVIEW WITH CAI AP BRYN
92 http://www.rifleshootermagazine.co.ukABOVE: Bespoke
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