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Where food opens the door to conversations about craft, culture & tradition.
The Wild Kitchen Ep 3 Hank Shaw
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Tiffany: [00:00:00] Hank Shaw is a James Beard award-winning author and the creator of Hunter Angler. Gardner Cook, one of the most respected and wild food resources out there. On a more personal note, I was lucky enough to go forging with Hank in the Sierra Nevada mountains, and he unlocked the joy of mushroom foraging for my husband, something I will be forever grateful for.
Welcome to the Wild Kitchen Podcast, Hank Shaw.
Hank: Thanks for having me on.
Tiffany: Yeah, thank you. And really, I have to say, um, that trip we did in California with you was, it was amazing for me, but I think it was truly life changing for Travis. He, uh, I had spent so much time trying to get him out in the woods to enjoy the, you know, the joys of finding mushrooms.
But man, something with you click that time. I don't know if it was just the. [00:01:00] The sheer success of all the mushrooms we found, or whatever it was. But he's, he's like a different person now, so thank you for that.
Hank: I mean, Portini will do that to you.
Tiffany: Yeah. Yeah. I think, I think it was, he like, he was like, it's, it's like a, it's like a treasure hunt for adults.
It was just mm-hmm. Yeah. It was, it was pretty, pretty amazing. Pretty amazing trip. So, yeah. That was cool. That was super cool. Um, I haven't talked to you in a while. I know you've got a new book, borderlands.
Hank: I do.
Tiffany: I've read it.
Hank: Yay.
Tiffany: Uh, highly, highly suggest anyone that knows how to read reads that book. It's, I like, I love it.
Alright. Broad
Hank: audience.
I
Tiffany: like that. Yeah. Honestly, like I've read all your books. I love them. Um, but I, I really, I really did enjoy this one. Um. I, I remember talking to you when you were working on it and you were learning, learning Spanish, that like most people don't learn a new language when [00:02:00] they write, when they write a book on, like that type of food.
What, what drove you to do that?
Hank: Um, I think the, and, well, I wanted to learn Spanish anyway, so, okay. It was this two things, dovetailed, but
Tiffany: yeah,
Hank: the, they, it became very, very, very clear to me that this book was not going to be very good if I couldn't speak Spanish, because the, the border is a bilingual place and just getting around, you know, let alone having deep conversations with people about food and their families and, and YX or Y dish is important to them.
I mean, you gotta speak the language. Uh, and then beyond that, I mean, I can look over at my, at my library. Which is in my office here and I'm, I can look at almost 300 books on Mexican food and about 250 of 'em are in Spanish. So if you can't read Spanish, you the, in this particular case, the, your world is very cloistered and very closed and very [00:03:00] limited, and, you know, I kind of viewed it as a prereq prerequisite to doing a book like this.
Tiffany: Yeah. Do you have plans to do more, more books in, in that sort of vein? Like in the, you know, south American, central American, more Mexican. Theme books
Hank: maybe someday. Um, yeah. But the next book I'm actually started work on already. Well, I'm gonna revise Buck, buck Moose. That's the first thing I'm gonna do.
Tiffany: Cool.
Hank: Um, 2026 is its 10th anniversary, and so we're gonna expand it and revise it and make it even, even better book for the next 10 years. Um, great. But in the background, I'm working on a book called, um, called Grasslands and Grasslands is gonna cover the Great Plains from Alberta and Saskatchewan all the way down to North Texas.
And so it's gonna be very similar take to Borderlands, but it's gonna cover that area. And, um, uh, I don't have to speak another language for that one, although I do have to say, uh, things like figure it out [00:04:00] and Yeah.
Tiffany: Gotta love the local dialects, eh.
Hank: Awesome. I'll, I'll learn Canadian chirping.
Tiffany: Yeah. Have you seen, um, oh, damnit, I can't remember the name of the movie.
It's a hockey movie, famous Canadian hockey movie. Um. I'm gonna get, I'm gonna get, uh, raked over the colds for this one. Ah, I can't remember.
Hank: I mean, to be fair, to be fair,
Tiffany: yeah.
Hank: Um, slap Shot is still the greatest hockey movie of all time.
Tiffany: Ah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It is pretty damn good. It's pretty damn good. Yeah.
Yeah. And the Canadians are gonna be playing the Americans soon too. Well, fingers crossed. Hopefully we'll get to Oh, oh yeah. If they get the ice right. Yeah. Yeah. No kidding. I can all fight, fight for, uh, a couple hours on the ice. Yeah. So that's cool. That's super cool. So, Upland game Birds, um, it's. Are, are you, are you, do you have plans to get a dog?
Is that ever in the, [00:05:00] uh, in the plans for you? No, no, no.
Hank: I, I look too, too, you know, mobile a life for it to be fair for, to have a dog.
Tiffany: Yeah,
Hank: that's
Tiffany: fair.
Hank: And besides like boats, the greatest thing is to not own a boat or a dog. The greatest thing is to have friends who have boats and dogs.
Tiffany: Yes, yes. Once you go down the rabbit hole of dogs, they get very specialized very quickly.
And it's if Yeah, it's, it's tough. It's really tough.
Hank: It's a lifestyle.
Tiffany: Yeah, for sure.
Hank: Like archery, archery's a lifestyle too.
Tiffany: Yeah. Yeah. Well, that's, that's cool. So when, like, do you have a hopeful timeline for when the, the new book will come out?
Hank: Maybe fall of 2027.
Tiffany: Okay.
Hank: Um,
Tiffany: very
Hank: cool. I mean, it takes me a while to do these books.
Yeah. And the, the idea is still not fully formed in my head yet because, um, all I can tell you is that. There's gonna be a lot of hidden gems that people don't necessarily know exist in the, in the Great Plains. Um, and a lot of the best cooking in that region is [00:06:00] in people's houses. Um, and I know I'm gonna be dealing heavily with not only, um, the indigenous presence in the Great Plains because it's very strong there and really specifically in the Dakotas and in Oklahoma.
Um, but also the, there's a very heavy Germans from Russia influence there too. And they, uh, them and the Mennonites go all the way up into the Canadian, uh, prairies, all the way down into Oklahoma and Texas. So it's a, the, the waves of immigration there and that, I'm sort of figuring out how to deal with that in terms of the book and what's important and what, what to, what to mention, what to leave out, what to include and all that kind of stuff.
Tiffany: That's cool. That's like less of a strict cookbook. Strict. Like this is how you hunt the animals and whatever that live in this area's a game book, but it's, no. Okay.
Hank: It'll not be a game book. Yeah. Um, just like Borderlands, it's not a game book. No. Um, so the, yes, um, you can use game and [00:07:00] most of the recipes in Borderlands and similarly you'll be able to use Fish and game and most of the recipes in, um, in grasslands.
But it's, uh, I flipped the paradigm on its head. So with Buck, buck, moose and physical cottontail and such, they're inherently game books that you can use, farmed and store-bought meats for. This is the other way around. So there are lots of beef dishes and chicken and whatever, whatever in both the borderlands and in the grasslands.
And so I'm gonna assume that you're gonna use that makes the book more accessible. But that said, me being me, yeah. I'm probably gonna use pheasant and deer meat, so
Tiffany: Yeah, for sure. Yeah, I mean, that was one of the things that struck me with Borderlands is it is like. I don't wanna say it's a travel book, but it it, like, it makes you want to travel to those areas.
It is it, you're commenting on the people and the culture and like the sociological, all, all that jazz that goes on in those areas with, through the lens of food. And I think that's, that's
Hank: the point.
Tiffany: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, like, it's, it's, [00:08:00] it's, it's very different than a lot of cookbooks. Like there's very few cookbooks that I've read that read like that, right?
This is a recipe, this is how you follow it. These are the ingredients you use. But I, I read pretty well exclusively cookbooks and so it's a real joy to read something that reads like, you know, this is the ingredients, this is the method, this is whatever. Right. Um, yeah. I love it. It was, it was really, really enjoyable.
Hank: I mean, it's a love letter to a region.
Tiffany: Yeah, yeah. No, it, it, a hundred percent reads like that. It's great. And I also recently. Probably for like, I don't know how many times I've read this book, reread this and went through and I was like, it's funny because when I first read it, you got the hard
Hank: cover too.
Tiffany: Oh, honestly, I think I've got, so I think I have a couple of these. This one I think is signed. It's one of the ones that was signed. There's a few, um, yeah, yeah, yeah. You signed this one. But, um, [00:09:00] yeah, it's, there's a few things that like, I realize now in retrospect, looking back, I'm like, I think that's why I got so into this ingredient.
'cause I read you talking about it. And so I kind of like went down my own path and checked it out and explored it and um, it was very cool. It was very cool. I recently read though you were experimenting with fermented trout.
Hank: Breakfast?
Tiffany: Uh, yes. So it, it made me laugh because I've never had it. However, I was recently in Sweden and was introduced to throwing Yeah.
Yes.
Hank: Illegal to open indoors.
Tiffany: Yeah. Yeah. They opened it underwater outside and people like, no joke, no joke. People were vomiting outside in the, uh, in the flatters. It was like, it was awesome. And after eating it, I was like, you know what? You know, before the fact, everyone's like, oh, it's the worst. It's terrible.
I'm like, well, have you ever had it? [00:10:00] And they're like, no, I haven't. And so outta the whole group of like, I think there's like 37 people there. Nobody had had it that I had talked to, but everyone said it was terrible. By the end of it, everyone had to eat it in order to pass this, this Norma Academy course.
So everyone ate it. People were throwing up. I ate it and I was like, eh, it's not that bad. In retrospect, I had a really severe inner ear infection that was causing my taste buds to go off and my, the smell to go off, which I think is why I handled it so well. And I was like, it's just like funky cheese. It smells like dirty diapers.
Hank: Mm-hmm.
Tiffany: But if you get over the smell, it's not bad.
Hank: So the way I like the Rock Fisk is, uh, a little lighter than the Norwegians like it.
Tiffany: Okay.
Hank: So they, they'll let it go a whole year and it gets a little like through strumming.
Tiffany: Yeah.
Hank: But I really liked it after like three and four months where it, was it funky, uh, it still held some texture, um, but it was, [00:11:00] uh, it was definitely not as ferocious as the older stuff.
Tiffany: How would you, like, would you just eat it plain or do you sort of dress it up the way they do with
Hank: potato? Oh, I, I made rye crackers for it because it seemed like an appropriate thing to do.
Tiffany: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I guess it's like. I guess it was like most things, you put enough, put enough toppings on it, everything tastes good.
I found that with the surf tro, there was a whole lot of like window dressing to
Hank: mm-hmm.
Tiffany: Make people not ever ent throw things
Hank: and you know
Tiffany: what, off to eat sour cre, drink potatoes. Yeah. But yeah, it was, it was memorable. And at the end of the trip, Travis was like, we were in the grocery store. He is like, oh, we should bring a couple cans home.
I'm like, why? Nobody wants to eat that. And what if it blows up in the plane and then like, we throw all our stuff out. Gross. It's like, it's like Scandinavian durian or something. Like you just, it is, you can't, yeah. It's, it was, it was an experience. I'm glad I experienced it, but I, yeah, I wanted to know how.
How much you wanted to punish yourself or if, if, if [00:12:00] it was rock, Fisk was less on the scale of
Hank: all of it's less, you could do the same thing with spear strumming and then just pull it and eat it before it's, you know, really ferocious.
Tiffany: So what do you do? Are you like curing it and then letting it ferment?
Or are you just
Hank: Yeah, it's a particular salt. Amount of salt and then, uh, and then a particular temperature. You have to be very, very clean. Everything has to be clean. Yeah. Um, and then it just basically ferments in the fridge for a while. Do it in glass or, or something that's non-reactive because if you do it in plastic again, I have to throw the plastic away.
Tiffany: Yeah, totally. It kind of reminds me, Travis, his family used to do pickled herring every single year at Christmas time.
Hank: Mm-hmm.
Tiffany: And this is when we were first dating, and this was a whole new experience for me, that they'd have this bucket of fish and they kept it outside. 'cause it was the winter and it was cold.
And we live in Canada and all the rest and. He was eating it in like May, and he said it had gone bad and so he wasn't gonna eat it anymore. And then I went back over [00:13:00] to his house a couple months later and he said it was good again, and he was eating it again. And I was just like, I couldn't, I couldn't fathom how a pickle fish.
It goes
Hank: into a dip of temperature probably.
Tiffany: Yeah. I, I still think he's eating rotten fish, but I don't know. He's,
Hank: I mean, you guys are, you know, in the Pacific Northwest, I mean,
Tiffany: yeah,
Hank: it's a thing there.
Tiffany: Yeah. Yeah.
Hank: The blankets are pretty notorious for some pretty stink stuff, like, like stink heads and they, uh.
A very funny story. I was in cake in southeast Alaska and this lady was showing us indigenous foodways and she gave us some sea oil and it looked very, you know, golden and pretty. And we tried it on some bread. It's like, oh, that pretty good? And she laughs and she goes, yeah, white people usually like this stuff because it doesn't have any taste.
And I'm like, wait, what? And so she pulls out, she pulls out this, the one that she liked, which was brown. It was completely oxidized and [00:14:00] it was. It reeked. It was rough. Yeah. And she's just laughing. She's like, this is the way we like it. I'm like, oh man. And then they'll, they'll do the same thing with, with salmon eggs.
Um, and I actually read a book after that called, it's Disgusting. And one of the really fascinating things about, uh, human disgust reflex is there's very few things that are hardwired. Everything else is cultural. So to the Swedes, to the Norwegians, to the Lints, um, all of those things are not disgusting because it's cultural and which tells you that even rotting food isn't necessarily a hardwired.
Gag reflex. So it's, it was, it's, it's definitely, I highly recommend the book. It's just, it, it'll reorganize your thoughts on what it is and what isn't gross.
Tiffany: You know, it's, it's funny you say that. Like I, uh, Travis and I were recently up in Haida Gwaii and they were talking about the different, different [00:15:00] foods they eat and you're talking about sea lions and seals.
And we're like, well, I've never had it before. What does it taste like? They're like, uh, and the way they described it was like how I describe bear to people. I'm like, if you get a good one and it's handled properly and it like, depends on what it's eating and how, however you prepare it, it's really good, but you can get like a terrible one that would make you never wanna eat it again.
And I hunting's been really good with that. 'cause when I first got into it, I was like, I, I'd never eat this. I'd never eat that. And then, then I eat bear and I eat cougar and I eat all these different, different types of meat and plants and things that, you know, never occurred to me would be delicious.
And. Then you are like, my God, like what wouldn't I eat? I look at my dog, I'm like, okay, no, I wouldn't eat him, but like, what wouldn't I eat? And it just opens you up. Tip
Hank: circumstance.
Tiffany: Yeah, exactly. How hungry am I? But in all fairness, I wouldn't eat my dog, but there's not much on the table that, that I wouldn't try at least once.
Right. [00:16:00]
Hank: Yeah, I mean, I've tried almost everything and, and there's a lot of things that are like,
Tiffany: Hmm,
Hank: yeah, no.
Tiffany: Okay. So tell, tell me what, what are the Hmm, I'd, I'd never eat again.
Hank: I mean, SA long time, but, um, but I really am not a fan of brains. Um, I've had 'em a couple, two, three times and they're like, I don't like the texture.
Really, really, really fermented stuff, like what we were just talking about. That's, those things are very rough. They're difficult for me. Yeah. Um, like, hi, Carl. The, the fermented Greenland shark up in Iceland is,
Tiffany: oh yeah, no,
Hank: that's rank. Um, so there's, there, there's the smell things, there's the texture things like, oh, uh, stinky tofu is, no, no, that's a hard no.
Um, NATO is a hard no.
Tiffany: Is it the slime?
Hank: Yeah. It's the, it's, it's stinks and it's slimy. And that's the thing. It's like this, we get back to the whole what's disgusting and what's not. Because if you talk to, uh, [00:17:00] many, many, uh, Chinese and Japanese and you talk to 'em about sticky tofu or nato, they will come right back at you with some of our cheeses and they'll be like, well, those cheeses are fucking disgusting.
And I'm like, no, not, they're great. And, and so it's just, it's all relative.
Tiffany: Yeah. Yeah. Combine, combine a different culture with like a, sort of broadly speaking, a culture's allergy to a certain food and combine that together. Well, that too.
Hank: Yeah.
Tiffany: Yeah. You'd be like dairy. What
Hank: Fair point about lactose intolerance.
Tiffany: I think it's cool though, to, to just get into a different culture and like, they, like, you just, they love a certain thing. I'm like, I gotta, I gotta wrap my head around it and see, see what that love is. And yeah, I mean, there's some, some things I just broadly I'm like, I can't get around fermented beans in a dessert.
Like I just. That's not my thing.
Hank: Oh, I've had, I've had sort of fermented sweet zuki beans, those little red ones.
Tiffany: Yeah.
Hank: And those are pretty good actually.
Tiffany: They don't taste bad, but to me I'm like, I, I'd [00:18:00] rather have a piece of cheese for dessert.
Hank: Well, sure, but I mean, like, if you're talking about like, no, uh, yeah,
Tiffany: no, fair enough.
Yeah.
Hank: Let's see. Other things. I don't like cottage cheese.
Tiffany: Really.
Hank: Like I'll eat it, but I don't love cottage cheese. Um, so that's a kind of a normal one. Um,
Tiffany: yeah,
Hank: you're probably never gonna see me eat like a triple decker burger. Um, 'cause I love hamburgers. I love burgers that are about like this big
Tiffany: fair.
Yep.
Hank: Because, you know, I, to me, a burger. Is a three to five bite deal so you can make the best burger in the universe. If it's three to five bites, I'm gonna love it. But the thing that happens, especially with chefs, is they make this big giant thing. You know, like
Tiffany: Yep.
Hank: You can't even wrap your mouth around water
Tiffany: on it.
Hank: Oh yeah. And then it's like fat on fat, on fat on fat. Just, oh, for fuck's sake, guys. Like, just,
Tiffany: no,
Hank: just stop. You know?
Tiffany: It [00:19:00] drives me nuts. You go to like, we have to go to Vegas every year and it's just like
Hank: for shot
Tiffany: show? Yes.
Hank: You mean the, the disease sharing? Um, extravaganza.
Tiffany: God, we got COVID before it was a thing.
I remember going there the first year and everyone came home like just horribly sick. And we're like, oh shit. We all got COVID.
Hank: Sean show was notorious for that.
Tiffany: It's so bad. It's so bad. Yeah. We're going again this year. We uh, we always, yeah, we always say this is the last year because we, like, we hate Vegas.
Um. I'll do anything to get outta that city, but we always end up going, so eh, whatcha gonna do Beretta's putting on a big range day, so that'll be fun. We've got two range days and that's about it. But yeah,
Hank: I mean, I, I can, I can get behind that. I shoot an A 400.
Tiffany: Yeah. Have you seen their new, uh, the eight hundreds?
Hank: Nope. Don't care. My a 400 is perfectly fine.
Tiffany: Hey, seriously soon. You gotta see this new
Hank: shotgun. No, don't care. [00:20:00] Like,
Tiffany: okay.
Hank: Like my, my main shotgun is a Ky Veloce over and under. Yeah. Uh, from 1990 something, and I had zero interest in buying a new one because it, I kill everything I point out with kin. Yeah.
And I, I don't understand, I mean, I do, it's corporate, it's products. It's like, buy this, buy this, buy this. But I don't understand, like, I like the filson mystique better. Yeah. Where I also wear a lot of filson where Yeah, it's expensive, but like, I'm literally wearing a tin cloth cruiser that's 20 years old and it's perfectly fine.
Tiffany: Yeah,
Hank: I'm, I'm that kind of guy, you know, like almost, I'm not, I'm a, I'm a late adopter on things.
Tiffany: Well, I don't think it's a late adopter, right? Like you buy once, cry once. Yeah. I think, yeah, those, those Beretta definitely suffers from the anti Apple. Right? Like they're not building some broken part into it where you're gonna have to buy a new shotgun in three years and get a new contract and whatever.
But I will say [00:21:00] maybe just take a peek and not saying like, you need to get a new shotgun, but damn those eight hundreds are made me question my, uh, 400 that I have now. It's just perfectly fine. I love the shotgun, but maybe just get a second one for Tuesdays and Wednesdays or something.
Hank: Well, as long as it fits you right?
I mean, that's the other thing. Yeah. It's like shotgunning is so personal.
Tiffany: Totally.
Hank: That, you know, I am. I had, I had this frunky completely redone because I was stupid and left it in my basement in a soft case, and it got rusted out. So I had to send it away to like one of the best gunsmiths in the United States to Yeah.
You know, bring it back to life. And he did. And it cost me a bunch of money, but like, no, do it revive her. Uh, most people would've just bought a new gun.
Tiffany: Once you have something that fits you nicely and shoots well, like
Hank: mm-hmm.
Tiffany: Why, like, it, it seems disrespectful to the, to the firearm to just toss it.
Right.
Hank: And I've been shooting it for 25 years, so
Tiffany: Yeah. You've killed a few things.
Hank: A couple,
Tiffany: yeah. Just a, [00:22:00] um, okay. Side note, I read that you were a, uh, advisor for, um, a new edition of the Joy Cooking.
Hank: Well, I was, this is not, it's no longer new, but this, because this was five years ago, I think.
Tiffany: Okay. How often are they putting them on?
Hank: Not that often. Often?
Tiffany: Yeah.
Hank: Um, like every 20 years?
Tiffany: Yeah. Okay. So it made me think, I have an old, I, I love old cookbooks and like the weirder, the more regional, like mm-hmm. The Ladies Lutheran Club of whatever. Right. Oh my God, they're my favorite. And
Hank: step one skin bear.
Tiffany: You totally right. Like throw it in pot with, with onion and whatever.
Like no measurements, just teacup of flour. And you're like, okay, cool. Just like grandma's recipes. But I. I have an old joy cooking that has, I think it's got like turtles and possum and raccoons. The original, yeah. Does the new one still have that? Like, I'm curious. Its a lot of advising. A lot really.
Hank: It has a lot of it.
It has, um, [00:23:00] it, it got rid of some of the weirder stuff, uh, like possum, uh,
Tiffany: yeah,
Hank: because, you know, let's face it, that was never really a popular food item anywhere. Oh, probably. Um, but yeah, it has a ton of game and a ton of fish in it. And it was funny because they hired me to, um, it's a great, it's a youngish couple there.
They've sort of inherited the business from the, from the elder generation. Um, and they hired me to do the game thing. I'm like, well, you know, honestly, I know fish and seafood better than I do a game. And not a lot of people necessarily know that, but so like, Hey, do the do the fish thing too. And it was, it was a really, it was a, it was an honor to do that.
And because Joy of cooking is such an iconic cookbook and to be, I even had a teeny little part of it was, was very rewarding and. It's definitely a highlight.
Tiffany: I was talking to my son about it, he's 16. He's like, oh yeah, the cookbook with like the, the, um, the popovers in it. I'm like, yeah, no, that's, that's where you get the recipe for that.
Like mm-hmm. It, I think it, most homes have a joy of [00:24:00] cooking in it. So
Hank: the other one that's really, if you wanna go in that route back to the, like the forties and fifties, it's a woman named Meta Givens and M-E-T-A-G, ie NS. So Meta Givens had like a two or three volume cookbook set that my mom had when she was growing up.
She also had joy. Um, but it's, it definitely has like step one skin.
Yeah.
And
Tiffany: Oh, very cool.
Hank: It, it's awesome. Yeah. And it has like, it's, it's hard. It's long outta print, but it has, um, but you can get it in the secondary market and it is, uh, it's a treat.
Tiffany: Yeah. Yeah. I just, oh man. I could read those books forever.
I just absolutely love 'em. There's, uh, one of my most prized ones is there's one from Nova Scotia that like talks about all the different immigrants that came in. Yeah. First skin
Hank: seal.
Tiffany: Yeah. Pretty much. It's like section this thick on oysters. Um, but Oh, it's so good. It is so good. I just love it. It helps you, [00:25:00] like, my family's from back there, so it helps me feel like I'm kind of connecting.
Like I couldn't, my grandma made the most amazing o cakes and I couldn't find the recipe for them's kind thing. Yeah. I looked in this book and I was like, I haven't been using lard. That's why my o cakes aren't, aren't like my grandma's. And
Hank: clearly,
Tiffany: yeah. Obviously, like, and I'm not using the right kind of lard.
So
Hank: Yeah. I, I mean I preach this, this is huge in Borderlands too, where. I use lard throughout that book, but I use real art and you know, everyone's like, well, where the hell do I get real lard? Like, go to a Latin market. They're like, oh, we don't have a Latin market near me. Like, and I like here, and like, I did this in Winnipeg, so I was doing an event in Winnipeg and we were cooking Mexican food.
And I said, I need this, this. And they're like, well, yeah, no, you're not gonna find it here. And, and like the hell, I won't. And there was, there's three Latin markets in Winnipeg that they had no idea existed. And, and sure enough, one of them had fresh rendered manka and, and you know, you can buy a quarter of it for like $2 or something.
And you [00:26:00] know, that's, that lard, which is, which is liquid at, in a warm room is better for you in terms of saturated fat than butter is.
Tiffany: Really?
Hank: Mm-hmm.
Tiffany: Wow. Yeah. I, um. You know, I'm on the lard train. I love it. And, and I like, I have, I've been looking for it. 'cause like you, for anyone that's listening that doesn't appreciate lard or know where to find it, you do not wanna buy those yellow boxes that are just sitting out No.
Hank: The green and
Tiffany: white in the United
Hank: States, but yeah.
Tiffany: Are they
Hank: That's the hydrogenated stuff.
Tiffany: Yeah. Yeah. That's, that's not what you wanna buy. You want like, legit stuff probably in a jar often is how, is how I tend to buy it in, in a refrigerator section of a local Latin place and it's mm-hmm. Cheap. It's super cheap.
Hank: Sometimes they leave them out and it's fine because it'll, it'll be fine for days, days, days.
Tiffany: Yeah. Yeah. So it's. Uh, like game changing in terms of recipes.
Hank: Mm-hmm. And, and in Canada and in Minnesota where I live, you can just leave it outside all winter. It's fine. [00:27:00]
Tiffany: Yeah. There you go. Same here. I mean, it's just coming.
A person that has a jar of bacon fat on my counter, 365 days a year. So,
Hank: I mean,
Tiffany: I'm not, I'm not stressed. Yeah. I, again, and a person that gets upset 'cause I can't find proper seit at Christmas time to make my Christmas pudding. 'cause even the butcher's like trying to slice off a piece of, uh, fat off a roast.
I'm like, that's not seit. He's like, yeah, it is. I'm like,
Hank: no. That's,
Tiffany: why am I telling a butcher at Seit?
Hank: I actually make, uh, I make English mince meat pies with real ground venison. Okay. And, and dried. And dried, um, and dried berries. It's really ridiculously good.
Tiffany: Yeah.
Hank: The recipes
Tiffany: on the website, it's like a friends episode.
Right. Sorry, I, if you ever, there is a episode of Friends where, uh, one of the people had two pages stuck together in a cookbook and they basically made a trifle with meat in it. And so when I think, and one, one of the guys [00:28:00] is like, mm, there's jam. Mm, there's meat. Mm. Good. And he is like eating it. But that's what Mi meat reminds me of is like,
Hank: that episode.
Well,
Tiffany: yeah. Mince.
Hank: Yeah, it mince meat has meat.
Tiffany: Yeah.
Hank: That's why it's called mince meat. Like it's mince meat sort of got outta the mince meat pie game like in the fifties maybe. Like it's historically MIT meat pies are sweet meats, like literally sweet meats. And I can tell you if, I mean, again, if you, I dunno if you have links to the, in this episode, but link to my mints meat pie recipe.
They're super, super good. Like, and you need, I use ground venison, but you can use any ground meat and just. Um, I make like quadruple batches of them and give 'em out to friends. There's little teeny pies like this big. Okay. So they're like three, three or four bite pies.
Tiffany: Does the mince meat, once you make like mince meat without meat, you can store it forever?
Uh,
Hank: same with meat with, because there's a bunch of alcohol, sugar, and salt in it.
Tiffany: Okay.
Hank: Yeah, it's a little bit [00:29:00] like the, um, the, what is the, it's like, it's not a fruitcake, although those last forever. There's a, there's a, a Christmas mixture that you generally make in like November and don't serve it until Christmas.
Can't remember what it is.
Tiffany: I like, I do a Christmas pudding and I make it.
Hank: Oh, it could be, it could be
Tiffany: that. Yeah,
Hank: yeah,
Tiffany: yeah. I make it, it's, I usually do it around boxes, like a
Hank: rum pudding. Is it?
Tiffany: Well, it's, I, again, full disclosure, I use Nigel Lawson's recipe 'cause it's. Unbelievably good. Okay. And it's really, it's full of booze.
Uh, you just soak the fruit and sherry mm-hmm. And then mix it with soup and breadcrumbs and a few other things and spices. But I've eaten that a year later and it's better than it was when I, when I made it
Hank: Italian. Pantone is like that too.
Tiffany: Oh, yeah. Yeah. It's good. I love it. I, I must, must be a sign to getting older, but like, I do enjoy those like, super rich, boozy, fruity things now, you
Hank: know, you [00:30:00] just need a slice.
That's why these MISP pies are so good, is because they're little.
Tiffany: Oh, that's cool. Okay. I'm gonna put a link in the, uh, I'm gonna put a link in there so people can find that. And I want to hear back if people actually make it, because I'm gonna make it. I bought, I was lazy. I bought a thing of pre-made tart.
Shes. Do they require making, uh, fresh ones? Does it matter? I know, I know. Okay. I will like, go to the ends of the earth for like dry cured sausages, but pastry is just, I just, it's not my thing.
Hank: Okay. I'm with you halfway. So I will not make filo dough. I'm not gonna make, there's a bunch of pastry dough that I won't make, but regular, like tart dough or par pie.
That's super easy. Like that's, yeah, you need to at least do that, you know? Okay. I mean, like, I get it. If we're doing like puff pastry or filo dough, buy that shit, but
Tiffany: [00:31:00] Yeah.
Hank: But because it's just the layering in that particular process is, is an app, it's an art and it's a pain in the ass. But I mean, I can make a pie dough and, I don't know, eight minutes.
Like it's not that hard. Yeah.
Tiffany: You know, I can't do it. I used to have to do it for work all the time. I just don't enjoy it. It's just, it's one of those things. But you know what, for this, if I'm gonna combine meat and dried fruit and booze, yeah. I, I'll go, I'll go the extra stuff and make the,
Hank: and it's a special, if I remember correctly, it's not exactly pie dough.
Tiffany: Okay. Okay. Like pie dough for dmmi sort of easy to put
Hank: together. It's not a hard dough. Yeah. I mean it's, it's, it's, it's a little bit like a, it's like a tart dough that, but, but it's pliable enough because you, you put it in little molds. Like I have a mince meat pie pan actually, that I got from England.
Tiffany: Okay. That sounds cool. That's awesome,
Hank: British, but they make it in Scotland too, so I'm allowed to make it.
Tiffany: Oh, there you go. Yeah. You know, I mean, Scott can do whatever they want.
Hank: Was a Scott. Fuck the English.
Tiffany: A hundred percent. Yes. [00:32:00] Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, I was, uh, my, my family's Sinclair on one side in Macintosh on the other side, so.
Hank: Perfect.
Tiffany: Yeah, we can talk. I just, yeah, I just got my Robbie Burns tickets through this year. Nice. Our local, uh, yeah, we have a local police pipe band that puts on a big dinner, and so we're bringing our son this year, and
Hank: let's just talk haggis for a second. Okay. Yeah. So while game haggis should not Oh, if the haggis in general should not have the reputation that it does, because if, for all of you out there listening who are like, eh, haggis bro, it's a fucking meatloaf.
That's all. It's like the only difference between it and regular meatloaf is you're using steel cut oats instead of breadcrumbs.
Yep.
And sure if you have a really famous one, it's gonna be done in a sheep's stomach and that's kind of, you know, whatever. But, but almost nobody does that anymore. You always, almost always make a haggs and a bread mold, like you make meatloaf.
And so it's really not that scary. All of the scary stuff is ground find. It's with seal cut oats and it's got all of the herbs and [00:33:00] spices that you are familiar with in the, in the season and it's just not bad. And the haggis balls, like the mixture fried up with a little bit of egg and breadcrumbs. Deep fry.
Yeah. You know, those, especially with like a good mustard, it's fantastic. And people need to like step off on that, on that particular dish. It's pretty good.
Tiffany: Oh. I mean, especially when they're like chowing down on hot dogs at the ballpark. Like, gimme a break. Right.
Hank: Lips and assholes.
Tiffany: I know. Totally. I like, I Hagas is a hill I will die on.
I love it. It, there is never a day in my house where there's not, I buy these rounds of thinly sliced Haus and we keep in the freezer all the time and have 'em for breakfast sometimes. Yeah. It's
Hank: not unlike scrapple actually.
Tiffany: Yeah, yeah.
Hank: You know, it's really similar to scrapple except for usually scrapple.
Scrapple is usually bound with cornmeal. Mm-hmm. Uh, and then there's a version in Ohio called gta, which is, uh, usually bound with, um, [00:34:00] with oats.
Tiffany: Yeah. Yeah, I, I, I dunno, people have, they focus on the wrong things. They get all upset about 3D printed three
Hank: stomach and the lungs that, that get people like, okay, leave both those things out.
It's fantastic.
Tiffany: I have a, a anatomy picture of a hauss in my, in our bathroom at home with like all the parts in it and the amount of people that have been like, holy crap, are you serious? There's lungs in Hagas. I'm never eating that. I'm like, come on, it's so
Hank: good. That's why you can't bring them into the United States.
Like, you can't, you can buy a Hagas in Scotland and they will stop your ass at the border. It's like, no hagas in the United States. It's only because of the lungs.
Tiffany: I just, I don't, I don't get it.
Hank: And I, you know, they're, they're not that necessary. You know, the thing about why that's in the haggis is because, you know, it's Laird and, and common people and the English overlords and all that kind of crap where it's like the, you know, it's, it's in the United States.
The expressions living high on the hog and. You live high on the [00:35:00] hog if you're rich, which is to say you're eating hams and backstrap and loins and stuff like that, and, and you eat low on the hog if you're not rich. Same thing with humble pie. You know? I mean, if you've ever heard the expression, somebody eating humble pie, that's from the, the old British term, humbles and humbles are awful.
Hmm. And so humbles are the guts out of a deer specifically that were, that were cooked into a, like a, like, almost like a shepherd's pie or a, uh, but sometimes they had a crust and it's, it's damn good. It's good. Yeah. It's, it's just like every other culture who has made something out of nothing. And made it wonderful in Mexico in, I didn't put it in in borderlands, but uh, there's a dish called Manono, which is a, a same kind of a deal.
And yeah, in the revise of buck, buck moose, I'm gonna include a cowboy dish from like Texas and Oklahoma called Son of a Bitch Stew, which basically the, if you think chili, the chili you know and love, but the meat is all chopped and ground up [00:36:00] wobbly bits, that's son of a bitch stew.
Tiffany: You could put like toenails and eyeballs in a taco and puts all like, I would be like, this is the best tacos.
Hank: Like toenails are a little crunchy, but, but eyeballs are a thing. Like, um, in the northern Mexico or in southern Texas, it's a breakfast thing. So it's cooked overnight and you come in the morning and you, and you buy your barba quo. And if you get there past like nine in the morning, there'll be a little sign on the door that says no IOLs, like no more eyes, because some old dude is like walked in there right when they open, like host Spotify and
Tiffany: screw you guys.
Hank: Like it's eyes are, they're a textural thing.
Tiffany: I mean, if it's chopped up with like cheeks and other bits and pieces, I like,
Hank: well, I'll tell you what they dobin that you get all the time with Bar coa is Paletta. So that palette.
Tiffany: Oh,
Hank: really? And it's, it's fine. Like I just, I eat through it. It's not my favorite, but it's like whatever.
We're, we're eating [00:37:00] the whole animal here. Fine eyes are a textural issue though.
Tiffany: So what, so the, the palate, is it just like harder or chewy or,
Hank: yeah. Here it's, um, it's, yeah, it's a little, it's like it's. Okay, so you know when you eat a chicken and the chicken breast and you know how there's that, there's that cartilage at the end of the keel bone in the breast.
Tiffany: Yeah,
Hank: it's like that.
Tiffany: Okay.
Hank: So not bad, but like, oh, okay.
Tiffany: Yeah. Yeah. The texture thing, I mean, some, some textures as I've gotten older, I've really appreciated like, like that the tendon in the leg.
Hank: Mm-hmm.
Tiffany: I will fight someone for that. I love it. I don't know what it is. Gelatinous stuff like oxtail and the tendons and, oh, neck.
Neck roast.
Hank: Shanks.
Tiffany: Yeah, shanks. I think the neck roast is my favorite cut on an animal outside of, you know, yeah. No neck gross. That's, that's my favorite. I love it. Absolutely love it. But it [00:38:00] does take some care and it's nice when, I don't know, I feel like you, you gotta go through the motions and like put the time in and make those things taste good.
It's not just chucking it in a pot with some. You know, French onion soup.
Hank: Mm-hmm. It's, it's real cooking.
Tiffany: Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Um, is there a hill that you're gonna die on regarding wild game? Like you feel like people aren't just getting the message and you wanna get it out to people?
Hank: I mean, I think I've been fortunate in being reasonably successful with that kind of thing.
Yeah. Like, I mean, I think it's gonna say in my tombstone, bleed the fish, pluck the bird and don't grind the shacks. So like of those three things, those are like the three things that I'm like, oh, for crying out loud, please. Especially upland game birds, um, and fat ducks. Um, but I think, I think I've a long way helping people with, [00:39:00] with, um, what we just, and making it.
And like sort of meeting them halfway and like, well I'm, I was a little bit hinky about this stuff too, but here is, here are recipes that you'll genuinely like. Um, I'm not into, you know, oh you should eat your broccoli kind of person. Um, so that's, that would be one I think, um,
I mean just in general, if you're talking about the, the e old hunter who is cooking game is they cook the tough parts too little and the tender parts too much. So if we could fix that, it would change a lot. Um, you know, backstrap and duck breast should be served pink and everybody who has been whining about how you can't cook a Turkey leg, you just haven't cooked it long enough, it will absolutely fall off the bone 100%.
I guarantee it could take five hours, but it's, it will happen.
Tiffany: Pressure cooker is your best friend [00:40:00]
Hank: also
Tiffany: with some of these things. Yeah. Yeah. God. Yeah. I, uh, it's funny when I'm sitting, I, one time I had a bunch of pheasants and I was plucking them in my front yard cursing as I was doing it because I dry pluck all the time.
I do too.
Hank: I, I should get one of those pluck things because they are effective. Um, yeah's a learning curve, but I just don't, if I get into a gym where I'm, where I'm shooting like 20, 30 pheasants a year or more, I have a friend who shoots over a hundred. I would absolutely get a pl her.
Tiffany: Yeah. I kind of enjoy it.
It's like, it's like meditation almost. You just
Hank: Yeah. Like three birds.
Tiffany: Yeah. Then yeah, no, it,
Hank: yeah.
Tiffany: Kind of sucks after that. Pheasants don't, I find this batch anyway that we had weren't, maybe they were fresh from the, from the local farm, but, uh, they didn't smell particularly great.
Hank: Mm. Okay.
Tiffany: Their, their guts were kind of funky.
Hank: Yeah. I mean, upland bird guts were stinky.
Tiffany: Yeah. Yeah. It wasn't enjoyable, but. [00:41:00] We can do. And speaking of
Hank: in her front yard,
Tiffany: no, it wasn't my front. A hundred percent. It's like the old west in our front yard throughout the fall because it's just like feathers floating around like tumbleweeds and Trav keeps all the, um, you know, the sheds he finds in our, in our garden.
And so there's always squirrels out there trying to eat the skull bits and antlers and
Hank: to get calcium.
Tiffany: Yeah. Yeah. No, it's, uh, probably terrifying for most of the neighborhood kids that come by. But it's
Hank: pre Halloween.
Tiffany: Exactly. We're already decorated. Right. Every day of the year, we, we
Hank: all like the skulls and, and uh, and fed antlers around there during Halloween, just like intersperse human bones here and there.
Like a, like a skull and
Tiffany: Yes, yes. No, no, no. Yeah. That damn kid that kept. Dropping off spam mail in the, uh, mailbox. He's, he's sitting there. Yeah. Um, okay. I wanted to ask you as well with, um, hunting tech or [00:42:00] not hunting neck butchery.
Hank: Mm-hmm.
Tiffany: Um, I've heard back and forth and Americans, I find, and I don't know if this is like a warm weather thing, but.
Soaking meat in ice water. How is that still a thing?
Hank: Like, am I missing, missing something? Tell you what the best deer meat you ever had, put in a cooler ice water and soak it there for 64 days. Change of water once or two, once or twice gonna be the best white deer meat you ever had.
Tiffany: Doesn't taste game me at all.
Yeah. I just like, from a bacteria standpoint, I don't like it from like a, it just Okay.
Hank: It's a warm weather thing. I find it mostly in like, Texas, Alabama, Oklahoma. Um, it's not a bacterial thing if you keep everything below 40 degrees.
Tiffany: Yeah. Okay.
Hank: Um, but it is a, it's, it's unnecessary. Um, and it will leach out much of the flavor of anything that it's on.
Tiffany: Yeah.
Hank: And yeah, it's just, you see it, it's a, it's a regional thing. Um,
Tiffany: okay.
Hank: I don't [00:43:00] support it. Now if I have to put something on ice, I put it on ice.
Tiffany: Yeah. Like. Where the water's not getting on it.
Hank: Correct?
Tiffany: Yes. Okay. Yeah, I thought, I don't know, like, I remember saying something to you about, uh, doves and dove poppers, and you corrected me pretty damn quick on like the joy of dove poppers.
Hank: Mm-hmm. For, for Labor Day. It's a
Tiffany: labor
Hank: thing
Tiffany: because I, I just like, they just like stick 'em on smoker and wrap 'em in bacon. I, I don't know. You're like, no, they're amazing. So maybe there's something I wasn't getting, but Yeah.
Hank: Yeah. With that
I could see doing that a little with a ruddy buck or, or an animal that you recovered the next day. It was a little off. Um, yeah. It's a way to leach out flavor and, and there are some cases where you might wanna do that, so, yeah.
Tiffany: Okay.
Hank: Uh, there, there's an exception to every rule.
Tiffany: Yeah. A general practice though.
Hank: General [00:44:00] practice, no.
Tiffany: Yeah. Yeah. Okay.
Hank: Or they say Minnesota. Yeah. No.
Tiffany: Yeah. Yeah. That's a Canadian thing too. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, no, no. Yeah. No. Yeah. No, I do it all the time. Oh,
Hank: yeah,
Tiffany: yeah, yeah, yeah.
Hank: I
Tiffany: know. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No. How is, how, how you liking Minnesota?
Hank: Uh, I mean, I'm liking it. It's, uh, I, I'm looking outta my office now.
We have a foot of snow on the ground.
Tiffany: Oh God.
Hank: And, you know, we got six inches last night and we'll get more. It's just, it's, it's gonna be one of those winters. And we've had two winters, which were pretty mild. Last winter was okay. Two winters ago was not a winter. Uh, it rained on on Christmas, which never happens.
And so now here we're, this is it. So I've, um, I brought my spikes out on my boots yesterday for a walk, and I'm gonna, I'm gonna have to switch to snow shoes, you know, right quick. And, uh, learning how to cross country ski. Um. And it's, um, you, you either embrace winter in Minnesota or you [00:45:00] die. It's just the way, it's because it's, it, it, it goes from routinely, we didn't get it this year, but we routinely get snow on Thanksgiving or on, uh, Halloween and Wow.
It will snow all the way to April and we will not see temperatures above 40 degrees Fahrenheit. Maybe we'll get a day or two in that weird February thaw that lasts for three days. Um, but we probably won't see 40 outside until March.
Tiffany: Do you get sun?
Hank: Uh, sometimes. So it, it slides between 10 to 25 in gray as hell, and everyone's depressed to zero and blindingly, uh, sunshiny Nice.
Which will be Saturday.
Tiffany: Nice. There you go. You need a little
Hank: bit of sun Negative three.
Tiffany: So is that affecting your, your ability to provide your own veggies and [00:46:00] food and all this kind of stuff, or you just adjusting
Hank: it? Fantastic.
Tiffany: Yeah.
Hank: And here's why. Because guess what? I don't have to do anything right now.
So you compress all of your activity into seven months or eight maybe. Um, and we, we get much longer days than Sacramento did. And it, it's the only thing I was finding, I was talking to a friend this morning about it and was the only thing I miss now is like I'm already missing green things. And what I'm realizing now is I need to blanch and freeze more green things because I just don't have.
I can go to the supermarket. Duh. But, but I'll tell you that, like that a guy like me, I'm like, I dunno, man, I don't have any vegetables in the house because I didn't put any up because like I'm somewhere in the middle of North Dakota and it's 1875 and there's, I'm gonna die. No, bro, just walk. [00:47:00] You can walk to the supermarket, you dumb shit.
Just walk to the supermarket and buy some goddamn kale and you'll be fine. But like, there's the other piece of me is like, I, I, I don't know
Tiffany: what's, what's the fun in that though, right? Like, and who knows? There might be people at the supermarket just waiting for Hank Shaw to come in and buy like some iceberg lettuce from Spain and take your picture and send it to you.
And I'm gonna tell everybody.
Hank: No, it just, it's uh, it's it, it's funny that that thought really just came up just yesterday and like, you know what, no, I'm just gonna. I'm gonna eat through my frozen stores and then just buy stuff at the supermarket like everybody else does, because I've got plenty of meat, plenty of grains, plenty of starchy things.
Plenty of fermented things, but like, but like something green I don't have,
Tiffany: yeah. You can see why like old Italian ladies get super excited about greens in the spring and like, oh, it's semi MIT to for my liver. Me too. And me too. Yeah, totally. Me too. Like, um, [00:48:00] cleavers man, that jar of, I, I like you didn't name
the,
Hank: the second most boring, wild edible on the planet.
Tiffany: Yeah. But I get very excited about Cleavers, like for two weeks in the spring. I'm like, I got my patch of Cleavers. It grows in my front yard and I drink it, and then I never touch it again, but
Hank: Oh, you smoothie it. Okay. That's, that's acceptable. Yeah. Like, I've seen people put it in the south, it's like Velcro wheat.
I'm like, no, I'm a hundred percent not gonna eat this Velcro shit. You know, dandelions all day.
Tiffany: Yeah. Uh, smoothie or I, um, put it in a jar and just like make like a tea from it. But it tastes good actually. I, I actually, but again, two weeks and then I'm done with it. That's it.
Hank: I, I love my dandelions in the early spring though.
Tiffany: Yes. Yeah, definitely. And Vancouver we're pretty lucky. Like, um, we've got Bittercress throughout the year. Dandelions throughout the year.
Hank: Yeah, I did in Sacramento. I mean, shit, we always pick nettles in like [00:49:00] January.
Tiffany: Oh yeah. I've got a patch of nettles in my garden right now. I could go out and pick 'em.
Like it's, I I have them year round. It's, it kind of takes the joy and excitement outta them. No, they're well. 'cause I, I'll cut them right back and then they grow. I just go through the year. I just keep chopping 'em back. 'cause the kids get upset. They don't. They don't.
Hank: That should be a great punishment for your children.
Tiffany: Totally.
Hank: I'm gonna throw you into the nettle patch.
Tiffany: Yeah. Under oh act. Oh. I just, I'm sorry. I just pushed you. Oh, my bad, my bad. Yeah.
Do
Hank: you know, apparently there's a net variety in New Zealand that is so powerful. It can kill you if you, if you fall into it naked.
Tiffany: Oh my goodness. Uh, that's naked. So like you have to have some
Hank: coverage or you to get x amount of skin, you know? Yeah. You, you could be wearing panties or shorts and like, you still probably would die, but
Tiffany: I always thought in New Zealand is like a pretty safe place with like flora and fauna, but uh, that's good to keep in mind
Hank: for the most part.
Yeah. It's much better than Australia.
Tiffany: Oh yeah.
Hank: [00:50:00] Where everything wants to kill you.
Tiffany: Everything does. I've got a friend that, uh, has invited us there and I like with, sometimes I say things without thinking about it and I said, dear God, no, I never wanna go there. There's like, like there's really sweet where to invite us and like, I genuinely would like to go to Australia, but I just, my initial gut reaction was, no, there's toony spiders and snakes.
I don't wanna go there.
Hank: So Australia is to the United States, what Canada is to the New Zealand.
Tiffany: Yeah. No, a hundred percent. Mm-hmm. We're nicer and better.
Hank: Smaller. Prettier. More polite.
Tiffany: Yeah. Sometimes
Hank: less chest slumping.
Tiffany: Yeah. I don't know. I don't know. There's some stuff about the states I, I quite, quite respect and like, but
Hank: I mean, same thing with Australia.
I can, all four countries are all great countries, you know?
Tiffany: Yeah.
Hank: I mean, my grandparents on both sides are Canadian. How can I, how can I not like Canada?
Tiffany: Yeah, I mean
Hank: Ontario for the record,
Tiffany: really? Mm-hmm. Okay. Well that's like by far the worst province, but I'll, I'll let slide
Hank: Also the most populated province
Tiffany: on terrible is what we call [00:51:00] it, but us West.
Yeah.
Hank: How is Canucks doing?
Tiffany: Yeah. No, they suck. I don't follow the
Hank: kuck. Yes. That
Tiffany: can,
Hank: that very, although they just beat the wild weirdly, like
Tiffany: really?
Hank: Yeah.
Tiffany: Yeah.
Hank: I think they got their fourth win.
Tiffany: You gotta bring back the North stars.
Hank: Uh, well, we're the wild are fine. Like we we're okay with that now. Oh. Um, I'm a devil's fan to be honest.
Really? I grew up in New Jersey, so Yeah.
Tiffany: That's fair. Yeah. Do you miss anything from, uh, picking, like digging clams in, in, in that area? Anything like that? Yeah,
Hank: digging clams is a lot of fun. Um, you know, there's, fishing in, in New Jersey is really, really good.
Tiffany: Yeah.
Hank: And I miss that kind of, that world there is pretty cool.
Um,
Tiffany: yeah.
Hank: And it's its own thing and it's vibrant, uh, hunting world in, in the metro and the New York City metro area is not very vibrant, but the fishing world is, is super, super strong and pervasive.
Tiffany: Anything else you wanted to chat about?
Hank: Well, I am very happy to say that you can finally get my books, um, in Canada.
And [00:52:00] that is, I just decided I could, I just couldn't get around. I couldn't find a distributor in Canada. I couldn't get Amazon, Canada just to, um, carry a lot of my older books or my newer books. So I just went around and around and I decided that, you know what, I'm just gonna take a, take it, take it on the chin, just so that it's, it's available.
So I actually have a. A discount code only for Canadians. The O Canada discount, it's all has to be capital letters. That's, that's, it won't work if it's not all capital letters, but O Canada is the checkout code on the website and that gives you like 50% off the books to offset the fact that, um, the shipping is so damn expensive.
Like the shipping is really what's killing us. And so I'm trying to like, make it less onerous for Canadians to get the books directly from me and they're all signed too. Um, and, and so like, you know what? Let's just do it. And, uh, that's been really helpful. I've seen a lot of Canadians finally buy, [00:53:00] uh, the books and they've been, you know, because everybody with a situation that's going on now, everyone was like, well, you know, thinking I'm okay with the tariff situation, which I'm very much not.
Um, but it's like I just can't. You know, I can't, I, I'm a small business guy. I, I have, I have very limited ability to, to do anything. But the one thing that I could do is, is basically selling the book at cost. Um, which I'm okay with.
Tiffany: Yeah, well, we'll put, um, links in, in the, in the writeup on this as well.
But I find the, um, it disappointing the response Canadians have had, and I'm probably gonna get hate for saying this, but like to, the Canadian response has been like, kind of hate on Americans opposed to the politicians that put in these policies and I just, I don't understand it. So, um, it's
Hank: human nature.
Yeah. Um, and I dunno, I've gotten a lot of Canadians who, you know, who, [00:54:00] who get it and who are,
Tiffany: yeah.
Hank: Maybe because I'm in Minnesota and are, uh, and Minnesota, Canada are so inter, you know, we're so intertwined.
Tiffany: Totally.
Hank: Um, and yeah, I mean, it's just a lot of it is like. Sorry.
Tiffany: Yeah, I mean, like misplace like focus, your, focus, your frustration on something positive, but just like, I don't know, it doesn't make sense.
So that's, that's super cool. I'll, uh, make sure people can, can see that and, um, get to your website and buy your books. 'cause like, like I said, they're awesome. I love '
Hank: em. Yep. And I have met a ton of Canadians in Baja in the wintertime, so there's an entire huge section on Baja and Borderland, so that would be,
Tiffany: yeah, you'll
Hank: find it useful.
Tiffany: Okay, cool. Yes, I was actually, I was talking with a friend about this yesterday. Apparently there's a ton of Canadians down there, so.
Hank: Mm-hmm.
Tiffany: Yeah. I don't know why, but
Hank: the American thing is like Canadians, they look just like us.
Tiffany: We have a secret handshake. I don't [00:55:00] know if you know that.
Hank: Well, it's easy, you know, you can never really quite get things like about out or, you know, there's a very, or you use a word like a to, um,
Tiffany: yeah.
Hank: Or the way the way Canadians say trout is really hilarious. Like Kevin Cowan and Iowa would just go back and forth and I would just overemphasize and I'd say trout and, and he would overemphasize go trout.
Tiffany: Yeah. I never thought about it. Trout. I think I say it. Okay.
Hank: Trout.
Tiffany: Do I?
Hank: But it's the same, it's the same dip thong as figure it out.
And it's, it's the same. It's the, uh, ou. And then, you know, NFIs, new Feess had their own, their own thing.
Tiffany: I, it's so funny seeing people. Uh, they're like, why do they sound Irish? It's like, I don't know. 'cause it's like a lot 'cause damn near
Hank: close to Ireland.
Tiffany: Yeah. They kind of came
Hank: from there and on a day
Tiffany: to swim there.
Yeah. Yeah. And they didn't wanna leave and they kind of have their own thing. Yeah. The first time I heard New NFIs talk, I did not understand a word they said. I just sat there, I was just a small kid [00:56:00] listening to them. I was like,
Hank: and you were from Nova Scotia. Even that's like right down the, right down the seaway.
Tiffany: I know. It's crazy. I like, I just, I'd go there every summer and yeah, this family came over and talk to my grandparents. I'm like, you understanding what they're saying? Because I don't, I dunno what they're saying, but yeah. That's
Hank: another good weird choice to circle back to what we were talking about, about what's disgusting and what's not.
Newbies really liked eating seabirds with the skin and fat. And really
Tiffany: that's.
Hank: Not a thing in most parts of the world. So you'll see it in Newfoundland, you'll see it in the Orkney Islands. You'll see it in the Pharaoh Islands.
Tiffany: Yeah.
Hank: To some extent you'll see it in Scandinavia. But you know, like, like stuffed puffins and stuff.
Like that's a, that's a thing, um, where to some extent the, uh, the native people of the Pacific Northwest will eat skin on fat, on sea ducks. But it's, that is an acquired taste. That's I think, one of those tastes that you can really only get, uh, growing up with. [00:57:00]
Tiffany: I wonder if it's, uh, just so necessity, like wanting that fat and extra calories.
So they just came, you know, didn't wanna waste it, but
Hank: Of course. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, yes.
Tiffany: Yeah.
Hank: And it's, it's, and then if you grow up with it, then it becomes part of who you're, so it's, it's, there's a lot of foods like lutfi here in Minnesota.
Tiffany: Yeah.
Hank: But to, to this day, no one has ever been able to explain to me why you would ruin perfectly good Salt Co by rehydrating it in the lie solution.
Tiffany: Yeah. It doesn't, like I've never had it before. Does it just get like a gelatinous quality to it, or, yeah.
Hank: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Now I love salt co salt's. Fantastic.
Tiffany: Yeah.
Hank: But can we just use water, please? I mean, gross. I don't, I don't get it. I've, and nobody's been able to explain it to me like
Tiffany: there's no extra preservation or anything.
It's just
Hank: No, no, because you're, this is the rehydration process. It's [00:58:00] already, I mean, so in Norway and Sweden, they would, they wouldn't use salt cod, they would use stock fish. So the difference is it's the same cod, but it's so cold and dry. They would hang them in the wind and they would just dry out to be like a, you know, indestructible, but with no salt needed because a, they were doing on the, on the sea coast, so you get salt air, but you're also, it's so cold and it's essentially freeze dried, whereas in the rest of the world, you would use salt to properly salt, salt for your fish down.
Um, and no one has been able to explain why. I suppose it would be wood ashes originally, but now it's a live solution and I just don't, I don't get it. It's fucking gross.
Dinky, gelatinous, under seasoned fish.
Tiffany: And did they just like put on potatoes or something like that? Or
Hank: Ish with, and then they'll sort of lso with it? No LSO rocks. Like LSO is essentially a [00:59:00] big giant tortilla, um, you know, like thicker than a crepe, but, you know, thinner than a flatbread. And that's great.
But ooh,
Tiffany: no, it doesn't sound appealing. But
Hank: it's part of identity though. Like, there was a, there was a Lutfi dinner just down the road from me last weekend that had a hundred people at it. Now, to be fair, to be fair, um, most of them were over the age of 60. But still,
Tiffany: I worry that like, that's why it's, I, I love these old books and celebrating these old kind of gross foods that people, people love.
Right? That's why I want my son to come to Robbie Burns dinner and why I've been feeding my kids disgusting. Well, not disgusting, delicious things, but some people find disgusting, uh, since they were babies. 'cause they, they don't think it's gross when they're a little kid and they eat it, right? Mm-hmm.
They just, they see mom eat it
Hank: or what makes you, you,
Tiffany: yeah, I mean, I remember cooking octopus, not [01:00:00] octopus is fantastic, but my daughter would like. Pull off the tentacles and stick 'em on the wall and like, so she just, she loved it. Like she would just destroy as much octopus as she could eat. Um, but like, it wasn't, it was just kind of cool for her.
Right. Like, just stick the tentacles on the wall and be like, oh my God, take 'em off and eat them. Wipe off the, wipe off the wall. Your
Hank: food.
Tiffany: Yeah. Or a tongue. Like I, I remember one time cooking off some, um, beef tongue in a pot and pulled off the, the skin and cut it up. Gave it to the kids. They just like destroyed it.
It was just, just meat for them.
Hank: That reminds me, I'm Corning two deer tongues in my fridge right now.
Tiffany: Do you ever do like a Montreal smoked meat sort of style?
Hank: Mm, I haven't actually. I need to go to Montreal. I've never been. Um, and I wanna go to and Jo Beef and places like that and I, and I hear the city's beautiful.
I don't speak French, so
Tiffany: you, you don't have to, there's enough Anglos there to,
Hank: or I can just speak Spanish.
Tiffany: Yeah, no, totally. [01:01:00] That won't get you anywhere. That won't get you anywhere in Montreal, but you should go in the spring when the sugar shacks are open. Okay. Yeah. Because then you go, well, it's so cold.
Like, yeah, it's still cold, but like the, uh, uh, pie han uh, chef has the sugar shack. I mean, there's sugar shacks everywhere I've heard, but his is sort of, yeah, it's sort of the well-known one, but it's quite the feast. You have to book well in advance. But, um, I'm sure you can make a phone call and, and, uh, get in there and, um, yeah, it's very cool.
Very, very cool. You're gonna need bigger pants on the, on the flight home. But, um, Montreal food is like probably the richest, most decadent stuff. They, it is, it's like an Olympic sport for them.
Hank: I've heard, I've heard that. I have the Elto C cookbook, and it's one of those things where it's like, oh God, Jesus, I'm gonna have to go snowshoe for 12 miles after this meal,
Tiffany: probably outta necessity.
They're just like, when, when you talk about the [01:02:00] burger with like the fo gra and uh, like sweet breads and that's a on top. Yeah.
Hank: Mm-hmm.
Tiffany: It, it's, it, it is, it's a lot. It's good to experience, but it's, it's a lot. It's a lot.
Hank: Noted.
Tiffany: Yeah. Anything else you wanna chat about?
Hank: No.
Tiffany: About the book in
Hank: there? You know, if you guys wanna, I think the easiest way for people to follow me along is on Instagram.
Um, I'm not really super active on Facebook anymore. Um, to me it's mostly old people yelling at each other, um,
Tiffany: and racist. Yeah.
Hank: Yeah. And so, but Instagram's fun. Um, yeah. And I'm Hunt Gather cook on that, and I run a, uh, a website called To the Bone, which is a, where I get to write about the intersection of life and nature, which I've been having a lot of fun with.
And, uh, if you want a free book, um, you should be a paid subscriber and I'll send you one.
Tiffany: Awesome. Yeah, and I recently read what you put up about, uh, conversations, oh, [01:03:00] male, male centered conversations. And honestly, like, I know I'm speaking as, as an outsider, but like that, uh, the importance of male only get togethers or female only get togethers is mm-hmm.
Something I've, I thought was ridiculous before. I, I am a big hater of. Camo and, you know, specifying things for, for, for women 'cause, but we are, we are very different and it, uh, there's a lot of value in, in having that space where men can be together and have conversations and feel safe. And it was, I really enjoyed it.
I really liked it. So there's, I think, I think there's a lot of, like, every, every time you write something in, in that, I just, I love it. It's, I appreciate it. It's a lot more, a lot more personal, a lot more like, just
Hank: very much so,
Tiffany: yeah. Yeah. Kind
Hank: of seasons that had a beginning, middle, and an end. And it may, it kept my sanity like
Tiffany: that.
Yeah. [01:04:00] That's sort of where I'm thinking. Otherwise, it just, it's like a never ending project that seems
Hank: Oh, and you know, unless you're making a bunch of money, it's like, what am I doing here? You know?
Tiffany: Yeah. This is not a money making venture. This is just like, eh,
Hank: neither was mine.
Tiffany: Yeah. No, I don't think, I don't think many people make money at podcasts.
It's more just to have fun and
Hank: like, I've been on Joe Rogan, but I'm not Joe Rogan.
Tiffany: I didn't know you were on Joe Rogan. How was it?
Hank: It was fun. This was a long time ago. Um, maybe about a decade, but a little less, maybe nine years. And he's relentlessly interesting and he is, uh, boosted up by his sidekick, whose name escapes me.
But so when we're talking, he will be, and like we'll talk about something and he'll put it up on the screen to give us some, to kind of boost that conversation along and be like, yes, that's what we're talking about. And um, that assist really allows his very non-linear conversations to, um, to, to blossom.
[01:05:00] And he is a great interviewer to begin with and he's very curious. Uh, I don't agree with a lot of the things he says, but that's fine. Um, and it's been, it's always been kind of an interesting thing.
Tiffany: Yeah, I think that's, I, I, looking at different pod, I don't listen to a ton of podcasts, but. The ones that I like are people that genuinely seem to wanna talk to the other person and are genuinely curious and having, it's like anything, right?
Like who wants to listen to two people talk when they're just talking at each other? But to genuinely care about what the other person has to say is, is a hallmark of a good podcaster and a good podcast, I think. Um, yeah. Otherwise it's just people speaking for the sake of speaking. So it's boring as shit, right?
Yes. Cool. Okay. Well thank you very much. Bye.