Strange foods and recipes.

[Magus]

They're probably not strange to most of us, but newbies and city types might turn a bit if you offered them a plate of it, things like deer, wild goat, snake, pigeon, rabbit, alligator, beaver, muskrat, nutria, swamp rat, even fox, and coyote are consumed daily, Among the plants are dandelion greens and wine, collards, ground cherries, rhubarb, green pine cones and pinions, pinole and other passed down Indian recipes and Mexican and Canadian imports. You know I've cooked some odd critters, let's hear your recipes! Strap this one on!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pemmican

 

[LadyLocust]

Strange foods?
Anything with okra in it
Pâté is an interesting one.

 

[Magus]

I've never made Pate` Somehow raw liver seems gross even to me.

 

[Supervisor42]

They're probably not strange to most of us, but newbies and city types might turn a bit if you offered them a plate of it, things like deer, wild goat, snake, pigeon, rabbit, alligator, beaver, muskrat, nutria, swamp rat, even fox, and coyote are consumed daily, Among the plants are dandelion greens and wine, collards, ground cherries, rhubarb, green pine cones and pinions, pinole and other passed down Indian recipes and Mexican and Canadian imports. You know I've cooked some odd critters, let's hear your recipes! Strap this one on!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pemmican

Fettuccini anyone?
Yep, we eat dat .
https://www.bayouwildtv.com/recipes/270-nutria-fettuccini.html

 

[Pearl]

Strange foods?
Anything with okra in it
Pâté is an interesting one.

Right there with you sister!!

 

[Magus]

I think y'all missed the idea of the thread, LOL. OK...
To me, ALL wild game must be brined, just how I roll, 1/4 to 1/2 a cup of salt per gallon if you're going to brine more than a day, you can add spices you like.
Partially or totally parboiling is something else I do, NEVER use the water you brined in unless you cut back the salt or planning on using the product for an ingredient in a much larger course such as Canadian goose salad or venison pasta. Let's look at those recipes:
Skin and gut one Canadian goose, you're NOT going to be able to pluck and singe it like a chicken, believe me, so go ahead and skin it! Brine it overnight in a mix of enough water to cover the bird after its cut up, 1/2 a cup of salt, and a crushed onion or garlic clove, sometimes I add a bottle of Worcestershire sauce or a cup of cheap, red wine, never both! the ideal is to brine for at least 24 hours or more, two days is perfect! take brine, pot, and all, and put over low heat at a very low simmer until it is nearly done to the bone, generally, an hour+ depending on the bird's size. remove from heat and drain, and arrange it in a Dutch oven lined with tin foil and paint the parts in bacon grease, Sprinkle in a mix of corn meal, red pepper, garlic powder, black pepper, Italian seasonings
and sage and bake over a low flame, rotate it every half hour, and baste with more bacon grease every hour, you should check it after an hour to see if it is done to the bone, it should be done in two hours, drain it, save the broth however! I'll tell you why in a minute. debone your meat and chop it finely, add pepperoncini, black olives, minced onion, dill seed, and 1 cup of mayo for every three cups of meat, and serve on a toasted roll. remember the drippings? add at least a pint of water, 1/4 cup of Worcestershire sauce, and 1/2 a stick of butter, simmer until mixed thoroughly, and use as a French dip.

Venison pasta:
Cut your meat into bite-sized chunks after brining overnight in salt and red wine or beer (each has its own flavor, try both!) Pressure cook in fresh water until done and sear brown in real butter and Worcestershire sauce with a tablespoon of minced garlic, add 1 can of diced tomatoes, 1 medium can of mushrooms, and 1 jar of Ragu Meat sauce and simmer until the thickness suits you, serve over any pasta you like, even macaroni. if you have leftovers, by the third day it will be heavenly as all the flavors will have combined!

 

[Magus]

Snake. I'm dying to try Anaconda steaks!
Parboil with a clove of garlic and a shot glass full of bourbon and a 1/4 cup of salt and a 1/2 of a juiced lemon.

Coat in a mix of Bisquick batter and minced onion, add the tops for variety, and deep fry.

 

[Magus]

Tomato pie, two kinds, sweet and spicy.
Both start with a thin crust of half-done cornbread.
Sweet is easy, puree some tomatoes, add sugar, and simmer until thick or thicken with cornstarch, add a layer of marshmallows and cover in cornbread batter, serve hot with vanilla ice cream.

Spicy is more involved.
Puree your tomatoes and thicken them with cornmeal until a spoon almost stands in it.
add a layer of thinly sliced onion, a layer of sliced Jalapeno peppers, a layer of cooked bacon, and a layer of shredded Mozzarella cheese, cover in cornbread batter, and bake until done! great with chili!

 

[ClemKadiddlehopper]

Beaver tail beans

Blister tail over a fire until the skin loosens than peel.
Cut up and boil with a pot of beans.
Add salt, pepper and onions if you have them.
Just roast on a stick over the fire if time is short.

 

[Supervisor42]

Snake. I'm dying to try Anaconda steaks!
Parboil with a clove of garlic and a shot glass full of bourbon and a 1/4 cup of salt and a 1/2 of a juiced lemon.

Coat in a mix of Bisquick and minced onion, add the tops for variety, and deep fry.

They didn't make it far up here at all .
Cajuns walked out of their houses and screamed: "You got any idea how much gumbo you can make with that 50lbs of meat?

; and everybody can have beautiful new boots!".... presto, they just vanished.
Florida protects them and that is why they are overrun with them.

 

[Magus]

Beaver tail beans

Blister tail over a fire until the skin loosens than peel.
Cut up and boil with a pot of beans.
Add salt, pepper and onions if you have them.
Just roast on a stick over the fire if time is short.

You beat me to it! LOL that is good eating!

 

[ClemKadiddlehopper]

Moose tongue

1-4 lbs tongue pre cooked until almost tender
Cool and peel.

2 cans tomato soup
1 can water
1 large diced onion
2 stalks celery chopped
1 green pepper
1/2 lb. mushrooms
1 Tbsp sugar
1/4 piece hot pepper
1 clove garlic
1/2 tsp chili powder
Peas

Saute' onion, celery, peppers, garlic, chilli in fat
add mushrooms saute' some more
Add soup and water
Simmer 5 minutes

Brown peeled sliced tongue in fat and add to sauce
Simmer around 1.5 hours

Add peas and serve with rice

 

[Magus]

Groundhog bake:
Gut the whistle pig out and remove the feet and head. brine it overnight and parboil for an hour.
Dice up some sweet potatoes, carrots, and some regular potatoes in whatever mix suits you, I like baby corn in mine. and mix in some bacon grease and cram it full and close the incision with stainless steel hobby wire. drape it in bacon, double wrap it in tinfoil and put it over a low fire and turn it once every twenty minutes for an hour and check the meat, if its done, remove it, if its not, give it thirty minutes more.

Another method is to make a thick cornbread stuffing using beef broth as liquid and mix in a can of mixed vegetables, 1 diced onion, and a can of mushrooms, make it so thick your spoon stands up in it, ladle it in and truss it up with your wire. follow the same cooking method.

Groundhog dumplings, SAY WHAT?
Boil your medium-sized rooter in the brine after sitting overnight with a mix of salt, onion, 1 tbsp of Tabasco sauce, or Texas Pete per quart of water, and 1/4 cup of red wine, put brine and all over medium heat and slow boil it until the meat falls off the bone, for a two-gallon pot, finely dice 4 sticks of celery, four potatoes, and using a vegetable peeler, shave in 4 carrots and a large sprig of parsley, simmer until the potatoes and carrots are done and using your favorite dumpling recipe load it up!
NOTE:
this same recipe can be used for squirrel but add 1 cup of beef trimmings for flavor.

 

[Weedygarden]

Strange foods?
Anything with okra in it
Pâté is an interesting one.

Yes, yes! Pate can make me gag, and I can eat almost anything.

 

[Weedygarden]

Okay, Magus, I just read through all the recipes. I imagine if I were starving, I would eat many of these. But as of now, I am far from starving and I am going to pass on almost everything. I'll eat collards and love to eat them. I make them with bacon, onions, garlic and red pepper and like to eat them with corn bread. Rhubarb, yes. Pinions? Yes, but in small amounts. That's it for now. But I am not hungry, nor starving.

 

[Mountain trapper]

I've eaten a lot of strange things while living and working overseas. A couple examples; while in Mongolia I was invited to dinner with a family of nomads. They took a ewe, laid it on its back, cut an opening just below the sternum, reached in and stopped it's heart. Then they gutted the sheep, cleaned the intestines with mares milk then put the guts in a large stainless bowl and heated it up over a dried horse turd fire. Don't know what they did with the carcass. With the intestines they served homemade mares milk vodka and mares milk beer.
One time in Kazakhstan an employee invited me to dinner with their family. Since I was considered an "important" person, they served me the sheep's eyes, tongue and horse intestines.
While in the hospital in Afghanistan, the staff had never seen an American before. They had no idea what to feed me so they didn't. A couple days later I finally saw a doctor that could speak English and told him that I was getting hungry. They brought me a bowl of greasy meat full of gristle floating in some kind of watery soup. And a loaf of flat bread.

 

[Supervisor42]

Okay, Magus, I just read through all the recipes. I imagine if I were starving, I would eat many of these. But as of now, I am far from starving and I am going to pass on almost everything. I'll eat collards and love to eat them. I make them with bacon, onions, garlic and red pepper and like to eat them with corn bread. Rhubarb, yes. Pinions? Yes, but in small amounts. That's it for now. But I am not hungry, nor starving.

OMG! Collard greens and rhubarb? You poor girl .
I think I would eat the anaconda steaks and nutria Fettuccini first.

 

[LadyLocust]

Moose tongue

1-4 lbs tongue pre cooked until almost tender
Cool and peel.

2 cans tomato soup
1 can water
1 large diced onion
2 stalks celery chopped
1 green pepper
1/2 lb. mushrooms
1 Tbsp sugar
1/4 piece hot pepper
1 clove garlic
1/2 tsp chili powder
Peas

Saute' onion, celery, peppers, garlic, chilli in fat
add mushrooms saute' some more
Add soup and water
Simmer 5 minutes

Brown peeled sliced tongue in fat and add to sauce
Simmer around 1.5 hours

Add peas and serve with rice

I’m part Portuguese and they didn’t used to waste anything. My Grt Gma didn’t like tongue and would say in English with her very thick Portuguese accent, “I no eata no cow’s handkerchief.” . I loved that woman.

 

[LadyLocust]

I think y'all missed the idea of the thread, LOL. OK...
To me, ALL wild game must be brined, just how I roll, 1/4 to 1/2 a cup of salt per gallon if you're going to brine more than a day, you can add spices you like.
Partially or totally parboiling is something else I do, NEVER use the water you brined in unless you cut back the salt or planning on using the product for an ingredient in a much larger course such as Canadian goose salad or venison pasta. Let's look at those recipes:
Skin and gut one Canadian goose, you're NOT going to be able to pluck and singe it like a chicken, believe me, so go ahead and skin it! Brine it overnight in a mix of enough water to cover the bird after its cut up, 1/2 a cup of salt, and a crushed onion or garlic clove, sometimes I add a bottle of Worcestershire sauce or a cup of cheap, red wine, never both! the ideal is to brine for at least 24 hours or more, two days is perfect! take brine, pot, and all, and put over low heat at a very low simmer until it is nearly done to the bone, generally, an hour+ depending on the bird's size. remove from heat and drain, and arrange it in a Dutch oven lined with tin foil and paint the parts in bacon grease, Sprinkle in a mix of corn meal, red pepper, garlic powder, black pepper, Italian seasonings
and sage and bake over a low flame, rotate it every half hour, and baste with more bacon grease every hour, you should check it after an hour to see if it is done to the bone, it should be done in two hours, drain it, save the broth however! I'll tell you why in a minute. debone your meat and chop it finely, add pepperoncini, black olives, minced onion, dill seed, and 1 cup of mayo for every three cups of meat, and serve on a toasted roll. remember the drippings? add at least a pint of water, 1/4 cup of Worcestershire sauce, and 1/2 a stick of butter, simmer until mixed thoroughly, and use as a French dip.

Venison pasta:
Cut your meat into bite-sized chunks after brining overnight in salt and red wine or beer (each has its own flavor, try both!) Pressure cook in fresh water until done and sear brown in real butter and Worcestershire sauce with a tablespoon of minced garlic, add 1 can of diced tomatoes, 1 medium can of mushrooms, and 1 jar of Ragu Meat sauce and simmer until the thickness suits you, serve over any pasta you like, even macaroni. if you have leftovers, by the third day it will be heavenly as all the flavors will have combined!

Something many folks don’t realize when dressing and preparing wild fowl- they need to hang for a couple days (depending upon the size of bird). Also, with any wild game but especially with venison (which happens to be my favorite meat), it needs to be rinsed with clean cool water before cooking it. The “blood” that comes from the meat is interstitial fluid and that’s what gives it the gamey flavor. It breaks me pea-pickin little heart when someone says they get a deer and make jerky from the whole thing

 

[Weedygarden]

OMG! Collard greens and rhubarb? You poor girl .
I think I would eat the anaconda steaks and nutria Fettuccini first.

When I was a child, my grandmother made greens. They were just nasty, imho. Greens and probably water used to cook them, probably salt and pepper. You have to cook them with seasoning and spices and especially bacon. Many people over cook them and then they are slimy.

Rhubarb needs lots of sugar to make it palatable, but when mixed with strawberries, yum!

 

[Magus]

Greens need onion, a ground pod of red pepper, and a fast stir fry of bacon grease.
Otherwise, it's just boiled yard salad. LOL
You guys realize where I was going with this is meat sources we might not be used to after SHTF right?
Clem posted about moose tongue, NOW I'm wondering about deer tongue?
hmmmmmmm.
Two things I don't have recipes for, frog legs and turtle, I despise both equally. I've tried them in various ways and they tasted like crap every time, even in gumbo!

 

[ClemKadiddlehopper]

Any variety of tongue can be used. Some places eat fish tongues. That one has me stumped in so many ways.

 

[Magus]

The current misuse of Jerky:
Jerky was merely a method of preservation, its main use was to be reconstituted is soups, stews, chili, etc. Eating a diet of jerky for an extended time is murder on your teeth and causes dehydration, eating it dry only became popular after cowboy movies. does anybody remember jerky before the 1970's? you don't because it wasn't there unless you lived in the Midwest or Texas and even then, eating jerky by itself wasn't common. stir that habanero maple hunk in your chili, or better yet, chop it up in it!

 

[Supervisor42]

I gotta top that collard-green post...
Back on topic, poke salad. They actually have a "Poke Salad Festival" in the town I lived, in Bama :
https://www.waff.com/video/2022/05/18/an-alabama-tradition-poke-salat-festival-arab/

It is made with this wonderful stuff...

Wiki: Phytolacca americana, also known as American pokeweed, pokeweed, poke sallet, dragonberries, and inkberry, is a poisonous, herbaceous perennial plant in the pokeweed family Phytolaccaceae.

It gives a whole new meaning to what "being dirt-poor" was all about . (sorry, no recipe).

 

[Magus]

I got your recipe right here!

Boil 1 gallon of young poke leaves in two gallons of water for one hour.
Drain and refill and boil for another thirty minutes.
Drain off enough to fill a skillet and remove the excess juice.
Mix a batter of 3 cups of yellow cornmeal, two green onions, and four eggs, and add water or milk until a spoon will almost stand in it.
In a large iron skillet, pour 1/4 cup of fresh bacon grease, pour in the poke, and spread evenly. add the batter and stir/scramble until everything is brown.
Some folks add a bit of red pepper. I don't.

Serve up with corn pone, pinto beans and buttermilk.
DON'T EAT PLANTS OVER 4' TALL OR THE BERRY SEEDS, THEY'LL KILL YOU!!!
There. Go sue god, not me. it will do you as much good.

 

[Supervisor42]

I got your recipe right here!

Boil 1 gallon of young poke leaves in two gallons of water for one hour.
Drain and refill and boil for another thirty minutes.
Drain off enough to fill a skillet and remove the excess juice.
Mix a batter of 3 cups of yellow cornmeal, two green onions, and four eggs, and add water or milk until a spoon will almost stand in it.
In a large iron skillet, pour 1/4 cup of fresh bacon grease, pour in the poke, and spread evenly. add the batter and stir/scramble until everything is brown.
Some folks add a bit of red pepper. I don't.

Serve up with corn pone, pinto beans and buttermilk.

...Ok, but you are responsible if anybody manages to poison themselves by thinking those beautiful berries would add color and flavor to the mix.

Wiki: Pokeweed is poisonous to humans, dogs, and livestock. In spring and early summer, shoots and leaves (not the root) are edible with proper cooking (hence the common name "poke sallet"), but later in the summer they become deadly, and the berries are also poisonous.

 

[Dani]

I've never made Pate` Somehow raw liver seems gross even to me.

It's not made with raw liver.

 

[Magus]

...Ok, but you are responsible if anybody manages to poison themselves by thinking those beautiful berries would add color and flavor to the mix.

I said NOTHING about the berries, the juice is used for wine, just don't use the damn seeds. they'll kill ya!
OK. fixed it.

 

[Magus]

It's not made with raw liver.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foie_grasNOW I'm interested. is it like potted meat?

 

[Magus]

https://urbansurvivalsite.com/civil-war-foods/