Two similar articles in MSM news outlets recently. Macleans and The Province (daily newspaper in Vancouver)
http://www2.macleans.ca/2014/01/23/shoot-first-make-sausages-later/
Hipsters are going hunting
They’ve already got the plaid shirts and deer antlers. Hunting is the next step.
by Sarah Elton on Thursday, January 23, 2014 11:20am -
On a cool evening in November, a group of twentysomethings set out from a farmhouse near Creemore, Ont., and shot a deer. They carried the animal back to the house with a tractor and strung it up for field dressing, first making an incision to carefully remove the intestines and stomach. They then spent the weekend butchering the carcass into cuts of venison and making sausages to stock their freezers.
This was the first hunt for some in this group from Toronto—and they didn’t want others to know. No one interviewed would go public. One woman feared that associating her name with killing animals might harm her boyfriend’s vegetarian business. Another thought it could make it harder to get a job in the tech sector.
The aesthetics of hunting have been hot for some time: lumberjack shirts and hunting caps as fashion, taxidermy and deer antlers as decor. All that was missing was the hunting. Now, a growing number of people who don’t fit the typical hunter profile are turning to the activity. Killing wild animals to procure your own meat is, after all, a natural next step for locavore types who’ve been growing vegetables, keeping backyard chickens and fermenting their own kombucha.
When you hunt your own game to make Canada goose prosciutto, as Drake Larsen of Iowa did a few Wednesdays ago after work, you have the ultimate alternative to the factory-raised meats typically found in the grocery cooler. “We never buy a package of ground beef. Ever,” said Larsen, who recently finished grad school and works by day at an organization promoting sustainable agriculture.
According to the American Sportsfishing Association, the number of people interested in hunting and fishing is rising in the U.S., and a new cohort of young people, women and suburbanites is getting involved. Across the country, the stats show there are more hunters today than there were five years ago. “It’s not just the boys going hunting,” said Chris Benson, who coordinates a program for Ducks Unlimited Canada that introduces new people to hunting. “It’s women, it’s environmentalists, it’s people from large urban centres who just want hands-on outdoor experience.”
Gourmet hunters like Larsen look to cult figures such as Hank Shaw, a former line chef who hunts and writes game cookbooks such as Duck Duck Goose, with recipes for the likes of duck heart tartare. “Honest food is what I’m seeking,” writes Shaw, encapsulating the mentality of the new hunter.
Kristopher Winiarski, a graduate student from Rhode Island, was motivated to take up hunting after meeting other young hunters and being exposed to Michael Pollan’s industrial-food-system exposé, The Omnivore’s Dilemma. “Prior to that, I was oblivious to where my meat was coming from.” Now he owns a gun, hunts regularly for wild fowl, has a bird dog as a pet (to help him hunt) and transforms what he catches into dishes such as goose kielbasa and sausage with fresh garlic, herbs and wine. Nowhere are the powdered spice concoctions that often flavour conventional meats. And he always makes sure to hang his game to let the microbes tenderize the meat, just as Julia Child suggested.
But learning to cook wild meats is a skill, particularly because game has less fat and is therefore less forgiving. “The first duck I ever shot I overcooked and it was terrible,” he said. Also, the hunting part is a big investment—you must enrol in the government-required course, get a licence, buy a gun, warm clothes, maybe some decoys and hip-waders. If you want to prepare the meat yourself rather than take it to a meat locker for processing, as is typical with conventional hunters, you’re looking at more gear. Larsen in Iowa has kitted out his garage with a gambrel to hang an animal for dressing, as well as a salvaged kitchen counter for processing.
And it’s time-consuming. The woman who helped butcher the deer that weekend in Creemore spent hours outside, removing the silver skin and fat from the carcass. She hopes all the work will be worth it. They weren’t able to hang the deer and let it age and develop flavour. “We didn’t have tons of time, because we had to get back to work,” she said.
http://www.theprovince.com/technolo...food+comes+from+with+video/9414109/story.html
Hunting makes a comeback as B.C.ers take a deeper look at where their food comes from (with video)
By Ian Austin, The Province January 22, 2014
Kai Nagata, a 27-year-old communications consultant, is taking up archery in his quest for ethical hunting and sees it as a more direct link to his diet, nature and the way he interacts with the world around him.
After decades of decline, hunting is once again on the upswing in B.C.
With E. coli and packing-plant horror stories to contend with, urbanites who want to control what goes into their systems see hunting as a more direct link to their diet — grass-fed, humanely killed, hormone-free.
Resident hunting licences peaked at 174,000 in 1981, but have rebounded in the last seven years from 85,000 in 2005 to 94,000 in 2012.
Concerns over food safety, eating locally and being connected to the food we eat have fuelled the surge.
The B.C. government is bullish on hunting, eliminating hunter-safety program requirements with a goal of at least 100,000 licensed hunters by 2014-15.
“Welcome to the 2012/13 hunting and trapping season!” enthuses Steve Thomson, B.C. minister of forests and lands, in the government’s Hunting and Trapping Synopsis 2012-14.
“Hunting and trapping is an integral part of the social fabric of British Columbia, providing amazing opportunity to appreciate our province’s wild spaces, and the creatures that dwell in them.”
Thomson said the government will spend $2 million this year enhancing habitat for deer, elk, moose, goat, sheep and caribou.
To boost hunting numbers, safety courses have been dropped as a requirement for new hunters and youth hunters aged 10 to 17.
“These changes will give youth and other new hunters an opportunity to find out if they enjoy hunting,” reads the government synopsis, “before requiring them to go through the time and monetary commitment of taking hunter safety training.”
Kai Nagata, a 27-year-old communications consultant, has taken up archery in his quest for ethical hunting.
“Those of us who grew up in the city are disconnected from the food we eat,” said Nagata. “It starts out as a philosophy, but it gets hands-on very quickly.
“You have to get skills and equipment and knowledge.”
Nagata’s quest to learn hunting with a bow gets him closer to the age-old life-and-death duel between prey and hunter.
“The hope is to actually go hunting with a bow,” said Nagata.
Filmmaker Ronan Nanning-Watson sees hunting as the latest development in his unorthodox eating regimen.
“When I was a kid I was a vegan, and then a vegetarian,” said the 23-year-old Vancouver filmmaker/artist/writer. “I decided if I was going to eat meat, I was going to know what I was doing.”
So he signed up with EatWild B.C., which offers two hunting courses.
“Learn to hunt, fish and gather food,” urges the EatWild.ca website.
“Let EatWild introduce you to hunting. At EatWild we believe that hunting is about respecting our food and where it comes from, understanding nature, and experiencing adventure.
“We can teach you to harvest and enjoy B.C.’s bounty of wild food.”
With that training behind him, Nanning-Watson is setting out with a purpose in mind.
“You know what you’re getting before you go out,” he said, now versed in hunting lingo.
“You have to buy a ticket, and you’re going to have someone else with you.”
Jesse Zeman of the B.C. Wildlife Federation has taken an educated look at B.C.’s hunting habits.
Zeman’s 2005 undergraduate thesis was titled The Precipitous Decline of Residential Hunting in the Okanagan. Now he’s writing a graduate paper on hunting and economics.
“People want to know where their meat is coming from,” said Zeman, who noted the bulk of the hunting is for what he calls the “Big 3”— deer, moose and elk.
“The 100-Mile Diet, focusing on local food, definitely plays a role.
“It’s definitely a North America-wide trend.”
Mark Gryski took up hunting five years ago, and sees it as a cat-and-mouse contest with animals that are genetically superior at the game.
“The deer are better at sneaking away from me than I am at sneaking up on them,” said Gryski. “They’ve been genetically programmed over thousands of years. If they smell you or hear you, they’re gone long before you know where they are.”
Most of the hunters interviewed for this story made a strict distinction between hunting for food and trophy hunting.
That distinction is not lost on the public at large: A recent survey found British Columbians support food hunting, but a large majority oppose trophy hunting.
iaustin@theprovince.com
twitter.com/ianaustin007
© Copyright (c) The Province
http://www2.macleans.ca/2014/01/23/shoot-first-make-sausages-later/
Hipsters are going hunting
They’ve already got the plaid shirts and deer antlers. Hunting is the next step.
by Sarah Elton on Thursday, January 23, 2014 11:20am -
On a cool evening in November, a group of twentysomethings set out from a farmhouse near Creemore, Ont., and shot a deer. They carried the animal back to the house with a tractor and strung it up for field dressing, first making an incision to carefully remove the intestines and stomach. They then spent the weekend butchering the carcass into cuts of venison and making sausages to stock their freezers.
This was the first hunt for some in this group from Toronto—and they didn’t want others to know. No one interviewed would go public. One woman feared that associating her name with killing animals might harm her boyfriend’s vegetarian business. Another thought it could make it harder to get a job in the tech sector.
The aesthetics of hunting have been hot for some time: lumberjack shirts and hunting caps as fashion, taxidermy and deer antlers as decor. All that was missing was the hunting. Now, a growing number of people who don’t fit the typical hunter profile are turning to the activity. Killing wild animals to procure your own meat is, after all, a natural next step for locavore types who’ve been growing vegetables, keeping backyard chickens and fermenting their own kombucha.
When you hunt your own game to make Canada goose prosciutto, as Drake Larsen of Iowa did a few Wednesdays ago after work, you have the ultimate alternative to the factory-raised meats typically found in the grocery cooler. “We never buy a package of ground beef. Ever,” said Larsen, who recently finished grad school and works by day at an organization promoting sustainable agriculture.
According to the American Sportsfishing Association, the number of people interested in hunting and fishing is rising in the U.S., and a new cohort of young people, women and suburbanites is getting involved. Across the country, the stats show there are more hunters today than there were five years ago. “It’s not just the boys going hunting,” said Chris Benson, who coordinates a program for Ducks Unlimited Canada that introduces new people to hunting. “It’s women, it’s environmentalists, it’s people from large urban centres who just want hands-on outdoor experience.”
Gourmet hunters like Larsen look to cult figures such as Hank Shaw, a former line chef who hunts and writes game cookbooks such as Duck Duck Goose, with recipes for the likes of duck heart tartare. “Honest food is what I’m seeking,” writes Shaw, encapsulating the mentality of the new hunter.
Kristopher Winiarski, a graduate student from Rhode Island, was motivated to take up hunting after meeting other young hunters and being exposed to Michael Pollan’s industrial-food-system exposé, The Omnivore’s Dilemma. “Prior to that, I was oblivious to where my meat was coming from.” Now he owns a gun, hunts regularly for wild fowl, has a bird dog as a pet (to help him hunt) and transforms what he catches into dishes such as goose kielbasa and sausage with fresh garlic, herbs and wine. Nowhere are the powdered spice concoctions that often flavour conventional meats. And he always makes sure to hang his game to let the microbes tenderize the meat, just as Julia Child suggested.
But learning to cook wild meats is a skill, particularly because game has less fat and is therefore less forgiving. “The first duck I ever shot I overcooked and it was terrible,” he said. Also, the hunting part is a big investment—you must enrol in the government-required course, get a licence, buy a gun, warm clothes, maybe some decoys and hip-waders. If you want to prepare the meat yourself rather than take it to a meat locker for processing, as is typical with conventional hunters, you’re looking at more gear. Larsen in Iowa has kitted out his garage with a gambrel to hang an animal for dressing, as well as a salvaged kitchen counter for processing.
And it’s time-consuming. The woman who helped butcher the deer that weekend in Creemore spent hours outside, removing the silver skin and fat from the carcass. She hopes all the work will be worth it. They weren’t able to hang the deer and let it age and develop flavour. “We didn’t have tons of time, because we had to get back to work,” she said.
http://www.theprovince.com/technolo...food+comes+from+with+video/9414109/story.html
Hunting makes a comeback as B.C.ers take a deeper look at where their food comes from (with video)
By Ian Austin, The Province January 22, 2014
Kai Nagata, a 27-year-old communications consultant, is taking up archery in his quest for ethical hunting and sees it as a more direct link to his diet, nature and the way he interacts with the world around him.
After decades of decline, hunting is once again on the upswing in B.C.
With E. coli and packing-plant horror stories to contend with, urbanites who want to control what goes into their systems see hunting as a more direct link to their diet — grass-fed, humanely killed, hormone-free.
Resident hunting licences peaked at 174,000 in 1981, but have rebounded in the last seven years from 85,000 in 2005 to 94,000 in 2012.
Concerns over food safety, eating locally and being connected to the food we eat have fuelled the surge.
The B.C. government is bullish on hunting, eliminating hunter-safety program requirements with a goal of at least 100,000 licensed hunters by 2014-15.
“Welcome to the 2012/13 hunting and trapping season!” enthuses Steve Thomson, B.C. minister of forests and lands, in the government’s Hunting and Trapping Synopsis 2012-14.
“Hunting and trapping is an integral part of the social fabric of British Columbia, providing amazing opportunity to appreciate our province’s wild spaces, and the creatures that dwell in them.”
Thomson said the government will spend $2 million this year enhancing habitat for deer, elk, moose, goat, sheep and caribou.
To boost hunting numbers, safety courses have been dropped as a requirement for new hunters and youth hunters aged 10 to 17.
“These changes will give youth and other new hunters an opportunity to find out if they enjoy hunting,” reads the government synopsis, “before requiring them to go through the time and monetary commitment of taking hunter safety training.”
Kai Nagata, a 27-year-old communications consultant, has taken up archery in his quest for ethical hunting.
“Those of us who grew up in the city are disconnected from the food we eat,” said Nagata. “It starts out as a philosophy, but it gets hands-on very quickly.
“You have to get skills and equipment and knowledge.”
Nagata’s quest to learn hunting with a bow gets him closer to the age-old life-and-death duel between prey and hunter.
“The hope is to actually go hunting with a bow,” said Nagata.
Filmmaker Ronan Nanning-Watson sees hunting as the latest development in his unorthodox eating regimen.
“When I was a kid I was a vegan, and then a vegetarian,” said the 23-year-old Vancouver filmmaker/artist/writer. “I decided if I was going to eat meat, I was going to know what I was doing.”
So he signed up with EatWild B.C., which offers two hunting courses.
“Learn to hunt, fish and gather food,” urges the EatWild.ca website.
“Let EatWild introduce you to hunting. At EatWild we believe that hunting is about respecting our food and where it comes from, understanding nature, and experiencing adventure.
“We can teach you to harvest and enjoy B.C.’s bounty of wild food.”
With that training behind him, Nanning-Watson is setting out with a purpose in mind.
“You know what you’re getting before you go out,” he said, now versed in hunting lingo.
“You have to buy a ticket, and you’re going to have someone else with you.”
Jesse Zeman of the B.C. Wildlife Federation has taken an educated look at B.C.’s hunting habits.
Zeman’s 2005 undergraduate thesis was titled The Precipitous Decline of Residential Hunting in the Okanagan. Now he’s writing a graduate paper on hunting and economics.
“People want to know where their meat is coming from,” said Zeman, who noted the bulk of the hunting is for what he calls the “Big 3”— deer, moose and elk.
“The 100-Mile Diet, focusing on local food, definitely plays a role.
“It’s definitely a North America-wide trend.”
Mark Gryski took up hunting five years ago, and sees it as a cat-and-mouse contest with animals that are genetically superior at the game.
“The deer are better at sneaking away from me than I am at sneaking up on them,” said Gryski. “They’ve been genetically programmed over thousands of years. If they smell you or hear you, they’re gone long before you know where they are.”
Most of the hunters interviewed for this story made a strict distinction between hunting for food and trophy hunting.
That distinction is not lost on the public at large: A recent survey found British Columbians support food hunting, but a large majority oppose trophy hunting.
iaustin@theprovince.com
twitter.com/ianaustin007
© Copyright (c) The Province
