Have you ever wondered what the American diet would be like without reclaim animals as meat sources ? What would it be like to rely on what is locally abundant and legally permitted forhunting ? Because I ’ve never hunt , my experience make wild plot has been pretty limited and I ’ve bank on others to do the all important human action of tracking down a creature and processing it into the sum that I can prepare at rest home .
While many people now think of deer , rabbits or raving mad turkeys when it comes to hunting , I ’ve descend across several interesting recipes that have expanded my imaging on how to serve up lesser - known wild game . Here ’s some solid food for intellection , so to speak , if you ’re search a more off - the - land feeding experience .
Squirrel
For most Americans , specially those who are beginners to cooking with hazardous plot , something small and unaired to home plate might be a naturalistic piazza to start . Slow Cooker Squirrel and Veggiesis unadulterated for beginners . It ’s heavy to mess up any meat if you put it in a irksome cooker . I had my first taste perception of rabbit this way , and it was surprisingly crank , moist and delicious . Most mass would say squirrel , with its dark , lean meat , tastes similar to rabbit . The downside to consume these smaller animate being is the routine of little bones , which are unvoiced to remove , and the lower meat - to - bone proportion . It could take a few squirrel to fill up a large crock for a stew , but they are certainly abundant .
Wild Pig
Abundance is name of the game with wild pig , whose U.S. populations reach about 5 million . Feral swine are an introduced species running rearing across most of the land , particularly in the Southwest . I first learned of them while I cultivate as a park forest fire fighter in Texas and could n’t consider the immense destruction they cause to the landscape . They ’re extremely intelligent and , like raccoons , can rapidly figure out the gadget people use to attempt to trap or contain them .
While universe control is an graspable motivation for hunting , it ’s also an opportunity to provide an abundance of meat to local consumer . The flavor of a wild pig will count on what the beast was eating , which , as Hank Shaw , writer ofBuck , Buck , Moose(H&H Books , 2016),explains on his website , could be anything from juniper berries to barley sprouts . A dependable bet for good flavor is his recipe for aspicy chorizo sausage .
Bobwhite Quail
If domestic fowl is more your matter and you love the theme of contribute to aboriginal prairie renovation , you might considerwild bobwhite quail on the grill . Like deer , elk , turkey and trout , farm - raised quail is commercially usable , but in some instinctive areas focusing on quail home ground preservation , populations have reached a unchanging enough gunpoint where hunting is carefully managed . The more I understand about where these birds live , the more I manage about preservation of grassland , one of North America ’s most threatened ecosystems . Also , the refreshingly simple little call of the quail , bob - white ! , is a sound I equate with broad open spaces and wise melodic phrase .
Muskox
Did you opine that the muskox was a thing of the yesteryear , last with the last ice long time ? Not quite . In Alaska and northerly Canada , this distant congenator of the goat has been reintroduced after being hunted to near extinction . It ’s monolithic , long - haired and can survive on the moss and lichen of the tundra . The dense and sublimely gentle priming is one of it secrets to survival . Interestingly , for a frigid - climate creature , it has very little fat in its essence , which means the burgers will not wince much and you may need to tot oil colour to muskox meat as you prepare it . render these recipes if you ’re looking for a place to start : Muskox BurgersorStuffed Musk Ox Tenderloin with Cranberry .
A New Perspective
Are you really well-worn of eating the same old chicken and beef , and your roof of the mouth is ready for something wilder ? I ’m not advocate for switching to an all crazy game diet … yet . But maybe it ’s time to take a moment to think about their origins , their landscape painting and why ordinance are in position to allow us to trace them . For the bull and squirrel , consider why it is that there are so many of them and that humans have replaced the top predators , keep their populations in check . For the muskox and quail , opine about how we have bring in our own destructive practice before almost completely exterminate their populations and restored their home ground to a gunpoint that we are now responsible for for maintaining and supervise their wellness .
Wildlife is more than “ game . ” They connect us to fantastic land and remind us we are all connected and all rely on access to land , atmosphere and water that is dependable and unobjectionable .
