\u201cHank takes this stuff seriously,\u201d hunter Randy Newberg stresses in Buck, Buck, Moose\u2019s 10th anniversary foreword. Over nearly 300 pages of hunting stories, butchery guides, and recipes, readers will surely come to agree\u2014Hank does\u00a0take this stuff seriously. Shaw, a former restaurant cook, has made a career out of welcoming curious readers to the \u201cwild food revolution,\u201d starting with his 2007-founded blog Hunter Angler Gardener Cook. Ten years ago, his publication of the original Buck, Buck, Moose \u201cchanged [his] life\u201d; now, he\u2019s back with 30 new recipes, as well as updated guidance on contemporary cooking methods and evolving food science. His mission is the same: to address the cliche of venison cooking as a wasteful afterthought to the actual hunt, and to champion hunt-to-table cooking. The cookbook is divided into two parts: \u201cDeer Basics\u201d and \u201cDeer to Table.\u201d In the former, Shaw breaks down everything he believes a hunter-cook needs to know: the minutiae of deer anatomy, food safety and proper cooling of the carcass, including why you should have a syringe at the ready in case you have to deal with \u201ca really full bladder.\u201d The heart of the book\u2014the \u201cDeer to Table\u201d recipes\u2014is subdivided into eight further parts, starting with meat marinades, stocks, and bone broths and extending to meals made with deer organs (\u201cwobbly bits\u201d) and the complex process of making homemade sausage. Shaw makes room for the classics here, with recipes for Steak Diane and liver and onions, but, inspired by the fact that people all over the world eat some form of venison, the author also delivers an impressive array of global dishes: Vietnamese shaking venison, Ghanaian palava, Sichuan heart stir-fry, and a Thai Massaman curry. Meat, of course, is the star of the show, but the author is equally focused on the delights of a good pan sauce or a pierogi dough. Stray tidbits of culinary history and cultural context work their way into Shaw\u2019s thoughtful recipe introductions, and he repeatedly credits fellow hunters and chefs.<\/p>\n
This is a book of great ideological passion. Shaw\u2019s tone is pragmatic, grounded, and accessible, but he doesn\u2019t let that temper his singular focus on the near-spiritual act of approaching venison as a hunter-cook. He\u2019s adamant about the sustainability and humanity of wild game hunting, and the sheer breadth of practically applicable knowledge is dizzying. Despite the author\u2019s best efforts, the book isn\u2019t completely exhaustive; no single book can be, as he acknowledges in the list of selected recommended reading near the book\u2019s appendix. Novice hunters and butchers may struggle to follow Shaw\u2019s written instructions, which often lack diagrams. Random quotes with deer themes distract slightly from the subject matter: It doesn\u2019t help Shaw\u2019s excellent material, for instance, to know that Rainer Maria Rilke once wrote: \u201cYou run like a herd of luminous deer, and I am dark; I am forest.\u201d Full-color photographs by Holly A. Heyser, Shaw\u2019s former partner, are at times instructive (one series of images shows how to wrap homemade deer meatballs with the animal\u2019s own caul fat), but they primarily serve to tempt the reader: Shaw\u2019s sumptuous descriptions of grilled heart with peppers glisten enticingly on the plate.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u201cHank takes this stuff seriously,\u201d hunter Randy Newberg stresses in Buck, Buck, Moose\u2019s 10th anniversary foreword. Over nearly 300 pages of hunting stories, butchery guides, and recipes, readers will surely come to agree\u2014Hank does\u00a0take this stuff seriously. Shaw, a former restaurant cook, has made a career out of welcoming curious readers to the \u201cwild food […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":7374,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7373","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interesting"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7373"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7373"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7373\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/7374"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7373"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7373"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7373"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}