It's all a matter of degree.
I remember learning that lesson the hard way. I was "preparing" my first mallard, a jumbo-sized, grain-fattened drake that I shot from a coffin blind in a South Dakota cornfield.A good friend and I went on an epic cross-country scouting mission the night before, and needless to say we found a very respectable late-season feed of impervious-to-winter mallards.
About three inches of snow had already blanketed the ground. The temperature had dipped into the teens for about a week. And most water sources, except for the largest of the large, were frozen. Still, with any luck, we figured one good hunt—the year's swan song, we thought—was at hand.
We weren't disappointed (that, incidentally, would come several hours later).
The short story: We each killed four burly greenheads and called it a year. That afternoon I dressed the birds and plucked one specifically for the roasting pan.
I had my grandmother on my mind; Alice (yes, I called my grandmother by her first name!) had perfected roasted duck. The skin was always crispy and the meat was fall-off-the-bone tender and succulent. The mere thought of Alice's oven-roasted duck sent my salivary glands into involuntarily release, like water spilling from a dam.
I was pumped to get in the kitchen and begin my gastronomic journey.
I filled the birds' cavity with quartered apples and onions, massaged the skin with a prepared dry rub, placed the mallard in the roasting pan, and added some braising liquid for good measure.
The oven was already preheated. The temperature: 475 degrees. I followed Alice's directions to the letter. Or so I thought.
One major problem: I over-shot the oven temperature by 200 degrees. Instead of cooking the bird low and slow I roasted it hot and fast. Who knew oven temperature mattered so much?
Instead of fall-off-the-bone tender dark meat, I had jerky bordering on saw dust.
Disaster was at hand. I ordered pizza. It's all a matter of degree, right?
Now several years after the Big Disappoint I still haven't perfected roasted duck. But I've learned a lot about bringing wild protein from the field to the table, and the experience has enriched my life immeasurably as a hunter.
Cooking wild game isn't nuclear physics, but there is a learning curve to breach. Be prepared for disappointment, but don't shy away from it. Just do it. The taste of failure—a mature snow goose as tough as a catcher's mitt—is just part of the adventure.
It's no coincidence that my game preparation started to improve as my respect for waterfowl and waterfowl hunting matured. When I was young and irresponsible, I was young and irresponsible.
I killed plenty of ducks, but I wouldn't always eat them. I'd stow them in the family freezer as, more or less, frozen, winged castaways. Invariably, freezer-burn would mount as a sort of fungus of neglect.
Shameful but true.
When I was in my early 20s I made a pact that I'd never kill anything I didn't eat. And I have been true to my promise ever since. And you know what? I enjoy cooking wild game, especially waterfowl, for my family and friends more than the hunt itself. I consider it a mandatory celebration of our waterfowling heritage.
Hunting has many riches, real and imagined. But nothing about our culture is more satisfying than watching some conscientious objector—that is, a person who heretofore objected to eating wild game under any circumstances—swoon over a dish.
Such interplay between hunters and non-hunters is healthy and needed. I had a conversation recently with a very smart friend who said hunting has no future without "wild food being at the center of what we do as a community of hunters."
He's right.
Bottom line: The non-hunting public will more readily accept hunting if they see us as responsible stewards of the animals we kill. In our increasingly urbanized society in which hunting is often considered an artifact of a bygone era, that's no small point.
I may have turned my first drake mallard into saw dust, but I dusted myself off and got back on the horse. And I'm still enjoying the ride. In fact, it feels like my gastronomical journey is just beginning.
Open up your freezer and start digging around. Find those winged castaways and plan a meal for your family and friends. You won't be sorry you did. Just do it. Today.
* Want to share you favorite waterfowl recipes? Email them to tmccormick@deltawaterfowl.org. I will share them in future posts. For recipes visit Delta Waterfowl's website.
Thank You for taking the time to promote the use of whole birds.
ReplyDeleteOne of the oldest & time-honored techniques for preparing birds is to boil (not fry) them in oil until fully tenderized, then crisp these up in a hot oven before service. The French call this Confit. Before modern refrigeration, most meats were prepared this way because food was allowed to cool, submerged in fat & then left unrefrigerated for many months. If the top of this fat became unwholesome in appearance, it was scraped away and new, hot fat was added. Most chef societies have their roots or origins from early period, bird cooking societies of Europe.
I host an annual "Duck and goose party". I cook up a bunch of different species of fowl and invite some non-hunting friends and colleagues over. Most don't even know that there are more than 1-2 species of duck. Several are under the impression that Canada Goose is a protected national symbol. Some love the taste, some not so much. Same goes for their appreciation of the flavours of different species. But they all leave with a little more knowledge of waterfowl, hunting, and conservation. I get frequent inquiries as to when the next one will be.
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