A little wiki about Boar.

Wild boar were originally found in North Africa and much of Eurasia; from the British Isles to Korea and the Sunda Islands. The northern limit of its range extended from southern Scandinavia to southern Siberia and Japan. Within this range it was absent in extremely dry deserts and alpine zones.

A few centuries ago they were found in North Africa along the Nile valley up to Khartum and north of the Sahara. The reconstructed northern boundary of the range in Asia ran from Lake Ladoga through the area of Novgorod and Moscow into the southern Ural. From there the boundary passed Ishim and farther east the Irtysh. In the eastern Baraba steppe (near Novosibirsk) the boundary turned steep south, encircled the Altai Mountains, and went again eastward including the Tannu-Ola Mountains and Lake Baikal. From here the boundary went slightly north of the Amur River eastward to its lower reaches at the Sea of Okhotsk. On Sakhalin there are only fossil reports of wild boar. The southern boundaries in Europe and Asia were almost everywhere identical to the sea shores of these continents. In dry deserts and high mountain ranges, the wild boar is naturally absent. So it is absent in the dry regions of Mongolia, in China westward of Sichuan and in India north of the Himalaya.

The hair of the boar was often used for the production of the toothbrush until the invention of synthetic materials in the 1930s. The hair for the bristles usually came from the neck area of the boar. While such brushes were popular because the bristles were soft, this was not the best material for oral hygiene as the hairs were slow to dry and usually retained bacteria. Today’s toothbrushes are made with plastic bristles.

Boar hair is used in the manufacture of boar-bristle hairbrushes, which are considered to be gentler on hair and are much more expensive than common plastic-bristle hairbrushes. However, among shaving brushes, which are almost exclusively made with animal fibres, the cheaper models use boar bristles, while badger hair is used in much more expensive models.

Boar hair is used in the manufacture of paintbrushes, especially those used for oil painting. Boar bristle paintbrushes are stiff enough to spread thick paint well, and the naturally split or “flagged” tip of the untrimmed bristle helps hold more paint.

Despite claims that boar bristles have been used in the manufacture of premium dart boards for use with steel-tipped darts, these boards are, in fact, made of other materials and fibres, the finest ones from sisal rope.

In many countries, boar are farmed for their meat, and in countries such as France and Italy, for example, boar may often be found for sale in butcher shops or offered in restaurants (although the consumption of wild boar meat has been linked to transmission of Hepatitis E in Japan). In Germany, boar meat ranks among the highest priced types of meat. In certain countries, such as Laos and parts of China, boar meat is considered an aphrodisiac.

 

About Rick Stein

Rick Stein opened his first business in Padstow in 1974, and now specialises in fish cookery. His business operates four restaurants, a bistro, a cafe, a seafood delicatessen, patisserie shop, a gift shop and a cookery school. His impact on the local economy of Padstow is such that it has been nicknamed “Padstein” despite the phrase being openly disputed by Rick himself.

In 2009 Rick Stein made his first acquisition in the nearby trading village of St Merryn, which is 3.5 miles from Padstow. When taking over the Cornish Arms public house, which is located on the outskirts of St Merryn, Stein’s stated aim was to ‘keep it a traditional Cornish pub’^.

On 1 October 2009, Rick Stein opened with his fiancee publicist Sarah Burns, “Rick Stein at Bannisters” in Mollymook, on the South Coast of New South Wales, Australia. Rick said at the time of opening, “Ever since a memorable weekend eating Pambula oysters and flathead in Merimbula in the sixties, I’ve had the image of the clean blue sea and sweet seafood of the South Coast fixed in my head so when I was introduced to Mollymook about six years ago I knew that one day I would open up a restaurant celebrating local fish and shellfish but keeping it really simple. Bannisters was the relaxed seaside hotel that I was looking for, so when they asked me if I’d be interested in cooking there I jumped at the opportunity”.

As well as running his business, Rick Stein has become a popular television presenter on food. Gaining early exposure after appearing on Keith Floyd’s 1984 series Floyd On Fish as a guest chef, he was noticed by the show’s producer and was later offered the chance to present his own series, similar in vein to the “travelogue” style of cookery show pioneered by Floyd on BBC television including Rick Stein’s Taste of the Sea, Fruits of the Sea, Seafood Odyssey, Fresh Food, Seafood Lovers’ Guide, Food Heroes, and in 2005 French Odyssey about a memorable journey down the canals of South Western France to the Mediterranean, Mediterranean Escapes. This starts where French Odyssey left off, and explores the Mediterranean coastline and islands in search of the best in the region’s foods. Rick Stein’s Far Eastern Odyssey, travelling around Malaysia, Cambodia, Thailand, Vietnam and Indonesia.

His current television programme is about the cooking of Spain off the beaten track.Stein was often accompanied by his Jack Russell terrier, Chalky, who died in January 2007.

A book has accompanied each series, and his book English Seafood Cookery won the Glenfiddich Award for Food Book of the Year in 1989. Rick Stein was awarded the OBE in the 2003 New Year Honours list for services to tourism in Cornwall.