The inaugural Fish & Game NZ Wild Game Bird Food Festival last year brought phrases such as duck prosciutto, whole foie gras, pheasant confit and semiboneless quail into New Zealand’s cuisine vocabulary.

This year the festival will further extend New Zealanders’ taste buds with several new award-winning restaurants entering the festival’s exclusive regions lineup - continuing its celebration of wild game birds as a new element of the country’s expanding cuisine and wine reputation.

Each of the 16 restaurants participating - one for each regional city throughout the country – creates a special wild game bird menu, based on several of the game birds on the hunting list and selects wine matches for the different dishes.

The game birds on this year’s hunting list are: Canada Goose, Grey Duck, Mallard Duck, Paradise Shelduck, Californian Quail, Cock Pheasant, Black swan, Chukar and Pukeko. The restaurant may select only one or several of these gamebirds for their 'special menu.'

Hunters bring their bagged wild game birds – dressed to the restaurant’s specifications - to their chosen restaurant a minimum of 24 hours before their dinner booking for the dish selected from its menu.

It is illegal for restaurants to sell wild game birds, but they can charge for the service involved in cooking them, and so each restaurant will take 15% (on average) off the price of each dish for the provision of the wild game bird meat.

Last year game bird hunters ‘flocked’ to the restaurants, bringing friends, family and colleagues to experience a wonderful cuisine occasion in which they could also celebrate their hunting prowess.

The game bird hunting season starts the first weekend of May each year, and this year the festival will run from Sunday 7 May to Sunday 27 May.

The game birds on this year’s hunting list are: Canada Goose, Grey Duck, Mallard Duck, Paradise Shelduck, Californian Quail, Cock Pheasant, Black swan, Chukar and Pukeko.

Fish & Game NZ Public Awareness Advisor Shonagh Lindsay says the festival looks to become a traditional event, welcomed as a great start to the winter season and a unique opportunity for New Zealanders to taste and appreciate wild game birds prepared in a variety of exclusive dishes by the country’s top chefs.