Roasted Wild Pork

Wild Pig
Those who have hunted wild pigs using dogs will appreciate the significance of that first bark after the pack has got a whiff of the prey.
All the senses are heightened as the hunter determines the direction of the initial chase and hopefully where the bail is about to take place. He has confidence his holders will do the job until he crashes through the scrub, heading for his dogs, to administer the coup de grace with a sticking knife designed to dispatch the quarry humanely.
Captain Cook introduced pigs to New Zealand on his 1773 voyage to New Zealand. He hoped they would spread and provide food for sailors on subsequent journeys. Spread they did, and like so much of the flora and fauna introduced to New Zealand, such as rabbits and gorse, they established themselves in plague proportions.
To the Maori, the ‘Captain Cookers’, the black and purest strain of wild pig, became a valued food source. Similarly, the early European colonists were also grateful to harvest them for sustenance and the wild stock soon interbred with domestic animals.
Because of its diet, wild pig meat is darker and has a more distinctive flavour than domestic pork. The taste is ‘shaped’ by the pig’s environment. Meat from a pig feeding on fern and roots in the pine forest is quite different from its counterpart grazing on grass.
Once you have caught your porker, there are two initial ways of dealing with it. One is to singe it, the other to skin it. The latter takes more skill, but when the pork hits the table the effort will have been worthwhile; if the skin is left on it will tend to shrink the meat, making it tougher. Unlike domestic pork, the skin from wild pork does not form ‘crackle’.
When roasting wild pork, do so in a large oven bag to help retain the moisture and flavour. Slow cooking is best and barbecuing wild pork can be tricky to get right. Wild pork, because of its strong, gamey flavour, is ideal with sauces and goes well with fruit-based bastes.