A Wild Feast
Shawn Swearingen for SPLIT REED
Cover Photo from @elevatedwild Credit: Aaron Spicer
I’ve been blessed with eating wild game in various forms of mallards or venison my Dad shot or crabs we plucked as a family from the salty waters of Pacific Ocean bays at an early age. Thus, cooking waterfowl when I started hunting came quickly, expanding my recipe book with freshly shot mallards for a fancy dinner with girlfriends or sharing a pile of smoked goose jerky with landowners. What took more patience was finding recipes that my new-to-hunting friends and then eventually wife and kids would enjoy. This in itself has led to traditions that have unfolded over the years when it came time to put the fruits of all those cold mornings in the marsh and timber on the table.
It can’t be emphasized enough, and as humble as he won’t admit it, how much credit Duck, Duck, Goose and its author Hank Shaw deserves for expanding the palates of waterfowlers of our generation. Through the cookbook and his website, he has shared various cultures’ recipes for waterfowl; but, just as critically, Hank has shared cooking techniques for us home chefs to utilize across dishes.
Under the banner of Elevated Wild with his partner Rachel, Wade Truong has taken his professional culinary experiences to the marshes, hardwood bottoms, and waters of the Chesapeake Bay. Their website and social posts continue to push many of us in not only using the most we can of what we kill afield but also just how readily available and easy it can be.
When it comes to bringing new hunters to the table, the best way is through their stomachs. As Wade stated, “It's something we all have in common, and it's a great starting point for a conversation about hunting. Why we hunt is such a complex idea, and a highly personal one. It's hard to articulate and explain all of it, but you can serve someone something tasty, they can experience part of the process, and if they're curious, you can explain the rest of it.”
“Every survey ever done shows that the American public is in support of hunting when the hunter uses the game for eating. We need to flip that paradigm though from ‘Do you eat it?’ to better represent that the vast majority of us do. I’m not special because I eat what I kill,” said Hank.
Hunting with my Dad and his friend sitting in the floating duck blind, chances are a jar of home-canned tuna (big chunks of Albacore) would be passed down the bench and at other times goose or venison jerky. As I’ve grown older, moved to a new flyway, and hunted with new friends (including veterans and newbies alike), those in-blind traditions have remained but with different treats: homemade smoked venison sausages and goose pastrami.
At Elevated Wild, the traditions of the year begin in September. “Over the seasons, Rachel and I have developed some food traditions. Most of them originated organically,” said Wade. “Dove hearts skewered on garlic chive blossoms in September, venison sausage and hominy after hunting geese, fried turkey with the first Tom in the spring. We usually make some tartare with the first deer of the season, and there's usually a bowl of wild game pho after the first cold duck hunt of the year.”
Hunting in Northern California for many years, there is one thing Hank has looked forward to each season. “In December the birds start to get really fat. As you clean the birds you’ll notice some of the livers can be light and enlarged. What this ends up being is like wild foie gras. I’ll clean them and cook in a high smoke point oil, adding some butter at the end with salt and pepper. When I pull them off the heat I add some really good, old balsamic vinegar. They are so good and so rare. It is a ‘hunters' treat’ that I look forward to every year.”
The traditions we have surrounding hunting and cooking are intertwined. While talking with Hank, we discussed how there is a myth around how “old timers” didn’t use all of the meat. For example though, one of the oldest hunting traditions that likely predates European settlement in North America is eating fresh deer heart in camp and continues today. “In truth, they did; they just did it differently. There are multiple ways to enjoy any given piece. If one [recipe] doesn’t work, there may be another way that pleases you. I try to teach people how to eat ‘nose to tail’ and enjoy it.”
At the end of this past season, a good hunting friend and his family joined mine in a wild game feast with the bounty of the year; sharing stories of the season in a potluck of finned, furred, and feathered variety. Baked speckled trout from coastal Georgia. Smothered pheasant from the prairies of Nebraska on roasted sweet potatoes. Pasta with duck leg confit and lemon. Sika deer steaks on the Treager and a bit of wild rice.
As Wade put it, “There was a point where I realized that the food I was most excited about came directly from farmers and watermen. The ingredients were excellent, but more than that, they always had a story to go along with it. I believe these stories enriched the eating experience, the food with background tasted better in my mind. It made sense to get as close to my own food as possible, and also, to experience ingredients that I could not buy.”
Enjoy the seasons and the experiences by making your own traditions in the blind or at the table!
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