Hunting & Heritage,Recipes & Cooking  |  09/09/2014

Wild food = good friends

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Our annual Shot, Caught, Foraged and Handmade potluck is now history. It was notable for culinary variety, of course. But also for more subtle reasons.

Expanding the invitation list to include cooks, gardeners and mushroom hunters resulted in a beautiful menu and fascinating conversations. Strangers became acquaintances, neighbors became friends.

Whether they should or not, anglers and hunters pride themselves on their cooking skills. But wielders of trowels and spatulas, kneaders of dough and chasers of chanterelles add dimension and color to a table and a party.

While the tools of our harvest differed, our motives were similar. We took pride in our work, the skills we acquired to accomplish our task. Practitioners of the myriad arts that stock a table amiably shared stories of pursuit and capture, no matter if the morels weren’t as fleet as the elk. In the telling, we discovered that we are all, fundamentally, locavores.

The buffet groaned under a natural bounty: Alaskan halibut and elk sliders, wild mushroom soup, elk meatballs and garden lasagna (are you salivating yet?). Paper plates bent under mounds of smoked chukar, farm-raised deviled eggs, home baked chocolate-chocolate chip cookies and taco salad with local venison, grilled corn salad (Corn? In this climate?).

(One bottle of von der Linden Brewing Company’s Puppy Pale Ale went home with a soldier recently returned from Afghanistan but don’t tell anybody – it’s a limited edition bottling.)

A hearty stew requires a careful mix of meat and vegetables, spices and seasonings. So does a good party.

(Scott’s purpose-built dog training gear is available here.)

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