Anyone for a squirrel burger... or a rabbit enchilada? Jaine Blackman meets Rosie Barham, a woman who is game to cook just about anything

A recipe which includes squirrels is not going to be to everyone’s taste but Rosie Barham is aiming to convert people with her not entirely appealingly named new cookery book Delicious Vermin!

Where some people see rabbits, pigeons and squirrels as serious pests, Rosie Barham sees delicious free-range meals.

“The definition of vermin is any animal or bird that proves to be a pest to farm animals or crops – my definition is free food,” says Rosie with relish.

She regularly tucks in to squirrel burgers, rabbit enchiladas and Kentucky fried pigeon.

The experienced game cook knows all kinds of ways of turning a tree-rat into a tasty treat, a woodpigeon into the perfect pie, and a rabbit into a roast to remember.

Rosie, who writes a two-page cookery feature in Airgun World every month, is launching her book at the CLA Game Fair at Blenheim Palace, which runs until Sunday.

Visitors to the Woodstock event can find her cooking up a storm and demonstrating some of the recipes, as they cross Blaydon Bridge, near the fishing tuition area.

Rosie is on a mission to persuade people that wild game – particularly airgun quarry - is an excellent source of protein.

“It is classed as vermin by many, but in fact, the meat obtained from rabbits, woodpigeons and squirrels is free-range, hormone and cholesterol-free, tasty, and easy to cook,” she says.

She’s been cooking the meats since the 1980s when her teenage son came home from school with an airgun – which he’d got in a swap of a Guns ‘N’ Roses LP Rosie had bought him for Christmas.

“It became a serious hobby and I had to cook everything he shot,” she says.

There were a few “misadventures” which Rosie wrote down “to keep me sane-ish”.

That led to first a column detailing those and later the cookery pages in Airgun World.

Her two sons are now grown-up and their four children are following-on the family tradition. Rosie, 69, tells how she was testing a recipe, and had cooked pigeon to put on a pizza, when two of her grandchildren aged five and six were visiting. When she returned to the pan she discovered the youngsters had polished most of it off.

Delicious Vermin! features more than 100 recipes and includes food preparation, required cookware, how to use herbs and spices, and a section on simple desserts, in an anecdotal style.

It aims to “help you to create exciting and appetising meals for a fraction of the cost of standard fare, with dishes that provide healthy options for those who dare to be different.”

Rosie, a book editor, author, and freelance writer who lives in Essex, says rabbits, squirrels, pigeons and their kind achieved vermin status by threatening our food resources and reckons it’s time we turned the tables.

And when she describes a squirrel dish cooked in white wine with shallots and mushrooms – “the meat has a delicate texture and flavour, not gamey; it’s sweet and nutty, really delicious” – I’m starting to consider trying a recipe.

However she doesn’t suggest everybody should grab a gun and head for the fields or the local park. Instead she advises to ask a farmer to obtain a supply.

“Most farmers employ professional pest controllers who can provide you with meat,” she says.

Delicious Vermin! is available for sale from calmproductions.com at £14.99
For details of the CLA Game Fair at Blenheim Palace see gamefair.co.uk