WildFed Podcast — Hunt Fish Forage Food

Latest Episodes:

So, You Wanna Turkey Hunt? With Carter Heath — WildFed Podcast #125 Mar 22, 2022

Show notes

Our guest today is Carter Heath, Regional Director for the New England and New York chapters of the National Wild Turkey Federation and longtime guest and friend of the show. He's also bi-lingual, speaking both English as well as wild turkey, in which he's quite fluent. Not just at cutting and gobbling, but even in Jake calls and gentle hen purrs too. The man simply exudes wild turkey vibes as if he were wrapped in a turkey atmosphere. And he gets to share this passion as his profession, which is just a beautiful thing to witness in a person.

Today we thought it would be fun to talk about getting started turkey hunting — start to finish — so this interview focuses on everything you need to know to get going. From getting your hunting license to selecting a weapon and strategy, to turning your bird — or hopefully birds — into delicious meals.

The turkey rut is just about to kick off, and we couldn't be more excited for a little spring thunder!

For now, enjoy the gobbling, cutting, and gentle purrs of Carter Heath. He's been a significant part of the incredible interest we've been experiencing around the spring turkey hunt in recent years, with its rapidly expanding hunter participation and especially the growing interest we've seen from new hunters.

We hope he'll inspire you to get involved if you aren't already and to join the National Wild Turkey Federation this year. It's just $35 a year, comes with a great magazine subscription, and your money goes to support very real and tangible habitat restoration projects and wild turkey conservation efforts. Join us in becoming a member, whether you hunt or not, because we need all hands on deck to preserve our hunting heritage and to conserve the wild turkey!

View full show notes, including links to resources from this episode here: https://www.wild-fed.com/podcast/125

Navigating the Metaverse, Nature and the Digital Future with Chris Morasky — WildFed Podcast #124 Mar 15, 2022

Show notes

Today's guest is Chris Morasky, and when it comes to off-grid, primitive living, this guy has put in the dirt time. He's also something of an existentialist philosopher, and our conversation today takes place at what we see as a pivotal moment in human history.

Where do we — lovers of the natural world — fit into an increasingly fast-paced, distracted, digital and, dare we say, artificial world?

We know it's on our minds, and we're guessing it's on yours too. After all, we don't imagine we'll be hunting and gathering wild foods in the metaverse, or experiencing the rich and meaningful relationships and experiences we currently get to curate here on the… well… natural earth.

Barring the catastrophic or unforeseeable, we are headed for an increasingly artificial experience of reality. We choose that word, "artificial," carefully. It shares a common root with the word artifact, and of course, the word art itself. Meaning shaped by human will or human hands, it stands in contrast to the word "natural" — something that has not been shaped by human will or human hands.

The metaverse, as it has come to be called, or the various forms of augmented reality that have been proposed, all take us further from the natural experience into the artificial. That's not a value statement, just an observation of reality. These worlds, digital extensions of our built environment, unlike the kind of "hybrid" world we inhabit now — made of both the natural and artificial — will be purely the work of human imagination. For those with a more transhumanist leaning, this is the ultimate dream fulfilled. Like the singularity itself, the idea of a metaverse is a kind of technotopia. But for many of us who love nature, and particularly for those of us who draw resources directly from nature, i.e. hunters and gatherers, it's a kind of nightmare scenario, a techno dystopia. But, it's unfolding before our very eyes and with no signs of slowing down. To the contrary, it's speeding up.

So, how do we navigate this rapidly approaching world. How do we relate to it, stay sane, and stay connected to the natural world? That's the question that's on our minds, in this conversation with Chris Morasky.

View full show notes, including links to resources from this episode here: https://www.wild-fed.com/podcast/124

Falconry, Hunting with Birds of Prey with Everett Headley — WildFed Podcast #123 Mar 08, 2022

Show notes

Everett Headley is back on the show today, this time, to discuss a topic we've been wanting to learn about for ages… Falconry. That's right, hunting with a bird of prey.

Each year, when we go through our own state's hunting regulations, we're always transfixed by the "grey squirrel falconry season." We think, just what is this anyway, and who is doing it?

Well, Everett is here today to give us a primer on what falconry is, who does it, and how. Of course, we'll learn a lot about these incredible birds too.

One of the big takeaways for us is that, prior to shotguns being widely available, this was a really efficient way to bird hunt. Of course, today, it's more of an art form, being kept alive by folks who want to maintain this ancient hunting relationship with wild raptors.

A lot of hunters, upon first learning about falconry think "I'd like to try that" — and Daniel is one of them — so in many ways, this interview gives us a real glimpse into just what it takes. Spoiler alert, it's a lot of work and not for everybody!

But we bet it's for some of you, and even if it's not, this is a fascinating and engrossing topic you won't want to miss.

So, special thanks to Everett for coming back on the show. He was just on for episode 118, A Hunting Dialectic, which was a great show too. We don't think we've ever had a guest on for two episodes so close together, but Everett has so much to offer the hunting world, and Daniel just couldn't wait to talk about these incredible birds and the lifestyle of hunting with them.

There's only about 4,000 falconers in the US today. We're hoping, after hearing this episode, that there might just be a few more added to the ranks.

View full show notes, including links to resources from this episode here: https://www.wild-fed.com/podcast/123

Creating a Wild Food Marketplace with Foraged — WildFed Podcast #122 Mar 01, 2022

Show notes

In today's episode, Daniel is speaking to Jack and Andy of Foraged.Market, a website dedicated to high-quality specialty and wild foods from around the world. Not only is it a place where you can find and purchase wild foods from vetted, sustainable foragers, but it's also a place where you can sell your own foraged foods or products you forage! Of course, you've always had the ability to sell what you forage, but it's not been easy to find buyers interested in your goods. But Foraged brings buyers, looking for your products, to you. Think Etsy for wild foods. Linking sellers and buyers to one another.

Imagine that you are a chef or a home cook, and you're looking for American Matsutake mushrooms. You could simply order them on Foraged.Marketplace, trusting that they've come from a forager who's been evaluated by the Foraged team, to ensure they're using sustainable foraging practices.

Or, let's say you've been making birch syrup at home, and you've got a surplus. You could sell your product on Foraged too, with your own online store front — assuming you've first gone through their sustainable forging practices verification process.

This is a huge leap forward for the wild foods and foraging community. Opening up avenues for the flow of these incredible, sustainable products into our food systems and empowering those who tend the wild to become more self-sufficient practicing their craft as an income source.

It means chefs can more easily access the incredible ingredients that we foragers have been enjoying for years, broadening the public's palette and perception of what the wild world produces, and thereby placing value on species that might otherwise be forgotten, ensuring that at least some of these species get the attention and eventual protection they need to exist in perpetuity!

It also opens up pathways for more scrutiny into the sustainability of our practices and to subtly shift the foraging world away from a taking model to more of a tending model.

We've got really high hopes for what Jack and Andy are doing at Foraged and are really looking forward to the way this could positively impact the foraging world! And also to see how it might benefit you, the listener, in either accessing wild foods you're interested in, or in sharing wild foods you love with others.

View full show notes, including links to resources from this episode here: https://www.wild-fed.com/podcast/122

Reflections on Berry Picking with Bob Krumm — WildFed Podcast #121 Feb 22, 2022

Show notes

Our guest today is Bob Krumm — author of several wonderful books on berry foraging that span the Pacific Northwest to New England and a fly fishing guide on the Bighorn River since the 1980s. In fact, still guiding clients today, Bob's now the eldest guide on the river — quite a distinction. We love this conversation because Bob's got qualities that we really want to cultivate in this life. He's so kind and good-hearted, and his outlook on life is so beautifully positive.

Bob's been gathering berries for jams and jellies for decades, and he sent Daniel several bottles, which he and Avani have readily devoured. He's convinced some of Bob's good vibes have made it into each bottle. Anyway, it's always great to get the perspective of folks who've been on the path and the planet a bit longer. It's such an important reminder of what's really most important in life.

Bob sent Daniel his books, and in each one where he signed them, he wrote a little message. They kind of sum up the philosophy that we're talking about.

One says: Remember, life's just a bowl of berries. Sweet ones at that.

Another reads: May all of your endeavors turn out berry good.

And the third: May your berry bucket be full of joy, love, blessings, and lots of luscious berries.

We think Bob collecting berries along the Bighorn River has gathered more than just ripe fruits — he's found a lot of what life is really all about.

View full show notes, including links to resources from this episode here: https://www.wild-fed.com/podcast/121

Prairie Restoration, Food, Medicine & History with Kelly Kindscher, PhD — WildFed Podcast #120 Feb 15, 2022

Show notes

We've got a great show for you today with Kelly Kindscher, PhD. He's the author of Edible Wild Plants of the Prairie, a senior scientist at the Kansas Biological Survey and a Professor in the Environmental Studies Program at the University of Kansas.

His research specialties are plant community ecology, conservation biology, restoration ecology, botany, and ethnobotany. His passion is for wild prairies, wild plants, and wild landscapes.

If you've got questions about the ecology of the prairie, Kelly Kindscher is your guy. And, we've got questions about the prairie!

We love interviews like this, deep dives on specific topics — especially getting to explore the big history of landscapes and their ecology. In our short lifetimes, we get such a brief glimpse into the places we live or visit, so drawing upon the incredible history and science to piece together a big-picture story, to us, is both revelatory and thrilling.

Today, of course, we're talking about the prairie, how it was formed — which, most interestingly, had strong anthropogenic influence — and what happened from the first settlement there, up to European contact, and right up to the present.

Having visited the prairie last year, not for the first time, but for the first time with intentionality, Daniel is keenly interested in this ecological treasure. And, having eaten from what it provides, in the form of bison, chokecherries, and prairie turnips, we really value the message that Dr. Kelly is sharing. That our prairie restoration efforts must include edible and medicinal plants if we hope to make a lasting change in how modern Americans relate to this crucial ecotype. Trying to rebuild it, exclusive of people just means people forget about it. Out of site, out of mind. But creating landscapes that humans can interact with, particularly at the gustatory level — which incidentally is likely the reason the prairies were built by humans in the first place — means that people, rather than forgetting, will instead be interacting. What we care about we protect.

It's a beautiful and timely message about a place whose importance can't be overstated. And of course, this same thinking can be applied to any and all landscapes. Like Kelly, we think tending wild landscapes for food and medicine is the missing component that gives modern people a reason to care. The answers are already there, they just need to be implemented.

View full show notes, including links to resources from this episode here: https://www.wild-fed.com/podcast/120

Farming the Wild with Mike Robinson — WildFed Podcast #119 Feb 08, 2022

Show notes

We've got a fascinating interview for you today. Our guest Mike Robinson is a restaurateur in the UK, specializing in bringing wild game meat to the market and table — something we can't really do here in the US but is legal in England. More specifically, he and his restaurants specialize in wild venison. In fact, Mike is playing a significant role in how wild venison reaches British diners. He's also a television personality, who currently has four different shows airing on Outdoor Channel. You read that right, four shows.

One of which, Farming the Wild — which airs in the same block as WildFed — often features him hunting deer in ways that frankly, we'd just never seen. Stalking through the English countryside with dogs, head shooting deer off of shooting sticks, letting his dogs find the deer, and then field dressing those deer to enter the restaurant market.

If you've never seen a man in a tweed golf hat field dress a deer in 70 seconds, you need to see his show! Mike has a method of cleaning deer that is faster, more hygienic, and more efficient than any we've ever seen. It comes from having harvested thousands — yes, thousands — of deer. And he'll describe his method for us in this interview.

There's a lot of really useful takeaways in this conversation, things that'll make your field care and final cooking product even better. It's also a very intriguing contrast — the differences between British and American hunting culture.

Here with our vast public lands, huge wilderness areas, and relatively short history as a domesticated landscape, our hunting culture has been shaped by a rugged, survivalist mentality. There in the UK, where there's been thousands of years of domestication and farming, their hunting culture is more akin to animal husbandry, which is why Mike's show is called Farming The Wild.

And while the differences are fascinating, between the old world and the new — we're even more interested in what we can learn from each other!

View full show notes, including links to resources from this episode here: https://www.wild-fed.com/podcast/119

A Hunting Dialectic with Everett Headley — WildFed Podcast #118 Feb 02, 2022

Show notes

Daniel set out to interview today's guest — Everett Headley — on the topic of falconry… cooperative hunting with a bird of prey. He's a Montana resident that, amongst other things, hunted with a red tail hawk and is now training a peregrine falcon. All very interesting stuff that we've wanted to learn more about for years. But from the moment we started speaking, it was obvious that the natural flow of their conversation was going in a different direction. Both Everett and Daniel take a very philosophical approach to hunting and to understanding their relationship to the outdoors and the wild things that live there, and this, being their initial conversation, quickly took a turn towards the big picture.

What they landed on was a conversation about the journey a hunter takes over the course of their lifetime and how they think we can best preserve our hunting heritage in perpetuity. It's an important topic, because, despite the renewed cultural interest we're seeing in hunting right now, there are many forces still aligned against it. And while, in recent years, many new hunters are embracing the lifestyle, we have a long way to go to win over the non-hunting public.

Everett is a really thoughtful person, and it comes through in how he communicates about the lifestyle he passionately lives. He really takes his time in exploring these ideas and has a deep grasp on the topic of hunting. Not just the how-to, but the why, and when. And by "when" we mean where we are, currently, in the timeline of modern hunting and its relationship to conservation.

We love conversations like this, true dialectics, where many questions are asked, but neither of us has an answer to the questions we're posing. Instead we explore them with a sincere desire to arrive at sound conclusions.

Whether you agree or not with the conclusions we are reaching is less important than that these ideas get explored. Because, as we're always wanting to point out, hunting isn't just some other hobby, like building model cars or playing racket ball. It's the natural, fundamental human food acquisition strategy and it's formative to how we came to be in relationship to the rest of the ecosystem and the other-than-human beings that inhabit them alongside us. Therefore, while many fads will come and go, some in the course of our lifetime, hunting must — in my opinion — remain. It's too important to who we are to see it lost or forgotten, or tread beneath the wheels of the engine of so-called progress.

So, it's in that spirit that Everett and Daniel have this conversation. It's a desire to see something fundamentally human, preserved.

And we promise to bring him back to talk about falconry soon. We're as interested to learn about that as you are. In the meantime, get to know Everett a bit, and take some time to consider these questions yourself. We need all hands on deck!

View full show notes, including links to resources from this episode here: https://www.wild-fed.com/podcast/118

Is Camouflage Necessary for Hunting? With Daniel Vitalis — WildFed Podcast #117 Jan 26, 2022

Show notes

Is camouflage necessary for hunting? How much of it is gimmick and hype? If it does work, to what degree does it make sense to be employing it?

Join Daniel for a solo edition of the podcast as he takes a deep dive into the art and practicality of camouflage. Nature regularly employs camouflage for deception — both for predators and for prey — and it's important that we, as hunters, consider our visibility in the landscapes we're moving through.

In this episode, Daniel explains how camouflage works and gives an overview of the myriad of different camouflage options available — patterns, colors, brands and more. He explores the effectiveness of these options in the field and shares his own experiences, as well as some of his favorites.

We hope this gives you some food for thought as you consider your hunting, fishing and foraging wardrobe into the future!

View full show notes, including links to resources from this episode here: https://www.wild-fed.com/podcast/117

Food, Culture, Place with Lori McCarthy — WildFed Podcast #116 Jan 18, 2022

Show notes

One of our favorite repeat guests, Lori McCarthy, is back today to talk about her new book, Food, Culture, Place: Stories, Traditions, and Recipes of Newfoundland.

Lori is, of course, from Newfoundland, Canada — which, by the way, should not be confused with the rest of Canada — as it really is its own place entirely, having only become a Canadian province in 1949! With a timezone 30 minutes ahead of Eastern Standard, they really do march to the beat of their own drum, and speak a dialect all their own. Of all the places we've visited in the US and Canada, nowhere is the food culture still as intimately tied to the landscape as it is there.

Lori's new book, while we'd categorize it as a cookbook, is also a deep dive into the foodways and cultural heritage of the island they call "The Rock", which is exemplified in the title — Food, Culture, Place.

Lori and Daniel have always had a great rapport, so this interview is full of stories, laughs, and of course, interesting anecdotes from the world of wild foods.

Oh, one more thing, we spoke with Lori this morning, and there's been some shipping delays that have postponed the official launch of her book, but she'll have them very soon. She wanted us to let you know, if you want to pre-order a copy you can do that on Amazon, or by emailing her directly at foodcultureplace.ca. She'll get one out to you as soon as they arrive.

In the meantime, enjoy the very unique insights, stories, and of course, accent of the one and only, Lori McCarthy.

View full show notes, including links to resources from this episode here: https://www.wild-fed.com/podcast/116

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