A truly wild meal

[huntress]

I feel like i'm young again. Wild canada goose i shot shaggy mane mushrooms I picked And home made wild rice dressing Paleo foods feel like i should be using a ground oven. Any body out there who forages too? Ya know cattail pollen pancakes, dandylion salads, skunk cabbage, water lily roots and the ditch loving wild asperagus.Let's trade recipes.

Diane

[PaleoDeano]

Wow Diane,

Sounds like you are lucky to be living in such a wild environment. Have you always been able to forage for food like that?

[alaskaman]

Huntress, that is SOOOO cool. You know me by now, always jumping in with some book, but have you ever read "Two little savages" by Ernest Thompson-Seton? for some reason he also sometimes called himself Ernest Seton-Thompson, a pretty famous canadian natrualist from about the turn of the century. Well, the "savages" book is about a couple of boys who learn indian ways, including foraging and stuff. In Ontario, but a lot of similarities to where you are. It was my MAIN read for a few years as a kid in Fairbanks. Also FWIW, he wrote a wonderful set, about 5 volumes, called "Lives of the Game Animals" which still beats any other animal book I've ever seen. He collected data from trappers, game wardens, rangers, whatever, and has more stuff on the behavior of animals. A lot of modern books just kiss you off with a genus species, the basics, but if you want to know what odd things moose have been known to do, or bears, or raccoons, "lives of game animals" is the one. Ha, "like you were young again" I remember you saying how you used to just get put out into the bush, and flourished. Cattail pollen pancakes? I read that cattail roots were used as a tuber type thing by indians. Not LC, probably. But in a survival situation, who'd worry. What fun you must be having. Bill

[huntress]

Bill I want the two little savages, I read it when I was about 10 and read it over and over again and again, I was very easy to find in school just look in the library my nose was in a book all the time. I found a good recipe for acorn flour too, leach the tannin from the acorns grind and dry, then make a pasta using the acorn flour and eggs and is brown colored. Dean as for wild places the mushrooms came from a vacant lot across from my house, the wild rice from safeway and the goose just outside city limits. I can forage in my back yard for chickweed, dandylions, aramanth, plantain and day lilies. Cattails are the best cossack asperagus, Green flower tops "corn", golden pollen, root flour and the steamed crown. My uncle was a trapper and ricer so we had wild rice all the time, I know where to pick wild rice and how to process it but not being a native I am not allowed to do it, so i have to buy it from a native co-op, You just have to keep your eyes open its surprising what wild foods grow in a city. Trapping season just opened for beaver, and coyote my buddy got a beaver already I have to get out and get a few, roast beaver the finest tasting meat really greasy and tender.

Diane

[2Airedales]

Hey Huntress
I'm having grouse for dinner.
I bagged 12 on the week-end! Could have been more but I use a 22 so I have to make sure I don't miss! I want to buy a shotgun & go goose hunting in the next couple of years. If I lived south I'd go for Wild Turkey. Have ever had black Bear meat? I make toutrieres with it. I'd love to try beaver.

[huntress]

I got a red phase blackie in the spring, I made a roast and didn't care for it, so If you don't mind can I have the recipe for you toutrieres they sound good and be in time for xmas. You did real well with the 22 I use to use a shot gun but after breaking 3 teeth on shot went to 22 for grouse, I thought I got them all. You have to use shotgun for geese. We have wild turkey around here I want to go but what do I give up. The meat on a beaver to use are the hams and the loins so if you can get someone to give you one yum a taste treat.

Diane

[2Airedales]

I just replace the meat with bear, I think I added ground pork fat.
I'll dig up my tourtiere recipe and post it for you.
I've had roast bear too and didn't like it either.

We had caribou chops last night for supper. Still trying to get a moose.