The Imperative of Protein

There is an imperative to fresh meat, a ticking clock you must race against as the animal begins to return to the earth from which it came. This is why in ages past families would gather for the autumnal hog-killing, a communal dash to preserve most of the pig before it went sour. Modern freezers are a boon, but this fundamental race against putrefaction remains.

You cannot refreeze uncooked meat and hope to enjoy it. So whatever you do to it, you must move fast. And in the case of many fish, freezing is not an option at all. That means work. Lots of work.

Any hunter or angler understands this intuitively, which is why many prefer to give away their catch or kill rather than face the butchering, filleting, boning, trimming, scaling, chopping and processing that follow that exhilarating moment of capture.

I, however, enjoy this process. I’ve written about it before; turning animal into meat with skill and finesse calms me and gives me a sense of worth. I am good at it, and butchery is a dying art. But put enough meat in the cooler and even I begin to dread the daily knife-sharpening.

I have not posted many recipes of late, nor have I been overly active here in recent weeks. My layoff is partly to blame, but part of it is because I have spent the better part of two weeks breaking down various sea creatures, and, most recently, a wild boar that Holly shot last Sunday. (I am cutting a chunk of shoulder from the beast in the picture above.) Frankly, I am tired. This is how I got that way:

Eleven shad kicked off the parade.

My friends Tom and Nick joined me with John the Guide for an evening shad trip on the American River two weeks ago. We had a spectacular bite, hooking 30-odd fish and keeping eleven, 10 of which turned out to be roe shad.

That began several days of work. Holly and I ate the shad roe with bacon, then I smoked several fish, made shad cakes and finally a batch of bottarga — the salt-cured roe that is Sardinia’s coolest gift to gastronomy. Why the rush? Shad does not freeze well unless it is cooked; the fish is too oily and soft. And did I mention that shad, while delicious, are the boniest fish in North America? Yep. That makes them a joy to work with…

After that came two striped bass.

Holly and I traveled separately last weekend: She was down in Monterey County looking for wild hogs, while I was on the San Francisco Bay fishing for halibut and striped bass. I had a slow day, catching only one bass. But a fellow angler who didn’t want to clean his catch gave me a striper, so I acquired another. I grilled it whole with lemon over rosemary branches. It was yummy.

But stripers are easy. Holly’s pig wouldn’t be quite such a breeze. 

Breaking down an 85-pound boar isn’t difficult, especially since Holly brought it back skinned, gutted and quartered. I boned out both front legs as well as the one hind leg with some shot damage, trimmed the silverskin and various icky bits off the cuts, portioned the loins, and rescued a lone tenderloin her guides had missed with the bone saw. Soon I had the “luxury cuts” all squared away.

Then it was time to make a gallon of boar stock and two rounds of sausage. The first was an herby fresh sausage flavored with a little garlic, sage, rosemary and thyme. Delish and clean: You can really get a sense of how wild boar tastes different from store-bought pork. Deeper, fuller and very much “porkier.”

The second round was a batch of Mexican-style chorizoI made for Holly (she’s the Mexican cook in the house). That sausage is even better than the herb sausage — super rich, spicy but not hot. Luxurious. I will post up the process for the chorizo soon.

Finally, there were the crabs. Yes, crabs. As if butchering a whole hog and catching shad and striped bass were not enough, I got an offer from a friend to go crabbing on Bodega Bay two days ago. We caught 38 crabs all told, and I took home 32. That was fun. But let me tell you, picking nearly three dozen rock and red crabs ain’t no picnic — it took me three hours. I will tell you more about the crabs in a day or so; the trip was pretty cool.

So yes, after all this I am pretty exhausted. Happy, but tired. Now I can concentrate on cooking this bounty. Until the next fishing trip.