We will get venison meat on the grocers shelves, not often but a lovely meat to cook in a potjie. When culling takes place is most likely the time you will find it in stores.
Culling normally happens when there is an abundance of animals, possibly land unable to sustain the numbers, may cull before droughts take affect, so selling the meat is the only option to recoup, waste not want not.
Potjie-kos "poi-key-cos” (pot food) is another popular way of cooking here in South Africa, venison (any game) meat for slow cooking makes a tasty treat.
Family and friends gather and chat well into the night when spending an evening together around the pot, this has developed into quite a large tradition in having "potjie kos" competitions, a tasters treat having exceptional chefs showing off their recipes, meat selection obtaining brilliant tastes (then swilled down with a beer)_.
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I learned so much just from your comment! Thanks for that!
I never would have guessed that's how "poi-key-cos" is pronounced! Also, do you call any wild game 'venison'? Here, we refer only to deer meat as venison. I'm not sure what we call antelope. I guess it's just antelope. :-D
"_ In culinary terms, venison can be meat from deer, elk, moose, caribou, antelope and pronghorn._"
We refer to most antelope wild meat as venison, sometimes label will specify which animal. Ironically our biltong (spiced dried meat) nearly always lets you know, since beef biltong is a lot cheaper than say Kudu or Ostrich biltong.
Wild birds in the Ostrich are farmed and we get the meat which is super lean and healthy to eat.
Wild pig (Warthog) cooked on a spit braai or potjie is delicious as well, many unusual things may be found in restaurants like cane rat or crocodile depending on the region and restaurant.
Ooooh, I've never had ostrich either. I didn't realize that they were a game animal in some places. Here they are so exotic that I don't think most people would even consider eating them. I no longer eat meat of any kind, so I will likely never try it myself...but I'm a bit saddened that I didn't have the opportunity to try while I was still an omnivore.