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Years ago, I watched a hunter skinning and cutting out the breast meat from a drake canvasback. I stood there, mesmerized. It was the first canvasback I’d ever seen in the flesh. Canvasbacks, if you are not familiar with them, are the king of ducks — so prized that it would cost $125 in today’s money to order one in a restaurant, back when this was legal nearly a century ago. Then and now, canvasbacks are a treasure at the table.
You do not skin and “breast out” such a treasure. Standing there, I found myself physically repulsed by what this guy was doing. For a long while I couldn’t even open my mouth for fear of what might come out of it. Finally, I approached him and, swallowing my emotions, asked nicely if I could have what was left after he’d skinned and breasted out his can. “Sure,” he said, looking at me like I was insane. “I was just going to throw it out anyway.”
In the years since, I’ve managed myself as best I could. When I see people skinning and breasting even perfectly shot, beautiful birds, I just look away. I try to forget about it when I hear comments like “the only legs I like are on a woman.” After all, most of the hunters doing this are good people, friends even. And the last thing I want to do is stand there haranguing people about what they should and shouldn’t do with their birds.
I understand why many hunters breast out their birds. If I were raised in a hunting community and everyone around me breasted and skinned our birds, chances I’d do the same thing. inertia and tradition are powerful forces. How a person perceives food makes a huge difference, too. If you view food merely as fuel, eating the animals you shoot becomes more of an obligation than a joy. You do it because you are supposed to, not because you prefer pheasant to chicken, or venison to beef.
But even though I understand why hunters breast out their birds, it does not mean I have to like it. For me, breasting out a bird shows disrespect for the animals we say we love. Consider this: As hunters, one of our strongest arguments when we’re trying to convince non- or anti-hunters that we are not in fact callous killers is that we eat what we bring home. Breasting out birds and tossing the legs, wings and giblets in the trash damages – some would say destroys – that argument.
I’ve heard all the excuses. “Coyotes and buzzards gotta eat, too.” Sorry, but we do not hunt to feed scavengers. I have also heard endless rationalizations about how it’s OK to dump the legs of pheasants, ducks and geese because they’re inedible, which is horseshit.
Even I don’t make duck scrapple, and I am, admittedly, an outlier in the hunting world. I am fond of telling people that I use “everything but the quack” on a duck or goose, but I still toss the feathers, intestines, lungs and head – although recently I have begun saving the tongues to make Chinese dishes.
A stronger counter-argument, however, is the very real truth that what I might view as good eats is another person’s trash. As hunting ethicist Jim Tantillo of the Orion Institute says, “Where one hunter sees pickled moose tongue and stuffed elk heart, another hunter sees food for carrion beetles and ‘the marvelous process of renewal.’” It is wrong to suggest that you cannot an ethical hunter if you don’t happen to enjoy making your own duck stock, or eating liver pate. And, scavenger argument notwithstanding, Tantillo has a point about that “marvelous process of renewal” — but only if you leave the carcasses of your birds in the field. If you toss them into the garbage can, that renewal will only occur at the city dump.
To my mind, this slippery slope of what ought to be eaten from a duck or goose ends at the supermarket. Walk into any market in America and tell me what you see: chicken breasts, yes, but also drumsticks, legs and thighs. Ditto for turkeys and ducks, too.
Make no mistake: Hunting is a privilege that can be taken from us. If society sees hunters as wasteful rednecks who can’t even be bothered to toss skinned pheasant legs into a crockpot with a can of cream of mushroom soup, we are in deep, deep trouble.
I am not saying we all should be required to pluck every bird we bring home, nor am I saying that everyone must eat giblets and wingtips and such. Sure, I do. But like I said, I am an outlier, a freak even. Surely there is some societal norm that we can all agree to about what parts of a bird ought to be kept?
There is, and it’s in Montana, a state with more hunters per capita than anywhere else in America. Montana has a law that requires hunters to use the legs of every bird they shoot larger than a partridge – if you’re not a hunter, that’s about the size of a Cornish game hen. So in Montana, you must use the legs (skinned or plucked, either way) of pheasants, ducks, geese, turkeys and grouse. Most of us would agree that this is reasonable, no?
But let’s face it. No law will prevent those who don’t want to eat the legs of their game birds from tossing them in the trash. Legislating morality is a dangerous game that often leads to zealotry and unintended consequences. The bottom line is that what I think or support doesn’t matter. What matters is what you think.
One of the primary reasons I run Hunter Angler Gardener Cook is to get hunters to want to eat more parts of the animals they bring home, even if it is just in a crockpot with cream of mushroom soup. It’s why I’ve been doing what I’ve been doing for five years now. And let me tell you, one of the things that keeps me so excited about HAGC is the steady stream of email I get from hunters who’ve taken a chance on cooking legs, wings, gizzards, etc., and are writing to tell me how much they enjoyed it. Emails like that make my week.
If you are one of those hunters, here’s the best present you could possibly give me in 2013: Find some skeptics and cook for them – only be sure to cook the legs, wings or giblets of whatever game bird you have in your home. Pheasants, ducks, geese, it doesn’t matter. If you can convince just one more person to save the legs on his birds, we’ve all won.
And if you happen to be one of those skeptical hunters, I humbly ask you to try any one of the recipes for legs or wings that you can find on this site. Just try it. For me. If you do, I’m betting you might just change your mind.
I am kind of lost on the point that Phillip was trying to make since he said his comment was “as much for the commenters as Hank”. I looked through the comments and I didn’t see anyone condemning others for using more or less of the animal. I did see that they were in general agreement with the post and shared some of the things they did with their game. I am in agreement with you that the “holier than thou” attitude hurts the efforts to enlighten and share. It is also my personal belief that labeling those that go the extra mile and strive to educate themselves as pretentious and snobby is equally unfair. I think we all know that some will do more than others in everything we do. Will you “convert” everyone? No. But the information is there for those that want it. When we get into a contest of who is more “nose to tail”or more of a “localvore” than the point is lost. We all need food to survive but to break bread with loved ones is an intangible need that far outweighs any past,current or future food trend.
Phillip: Congratulations! You have officially left the longest comment ever in the five-year history of HAGC. To your points: If you think I am holier than thou, you ought to see the people I run with. I am about as middle of the road when it comes to my tolerance of other hunting behaviors as you can possibly get.
As to your point about varmint hunters and predator hunters, I personally couldn’t care less about defending them. I don’t hunt varmints or predators. I neither support nor condemn what they do, and see no reason to have to “defend hunting” as a whole. Not my job. I do however see a reason to explain to non- and anti-hunters why I do hunt. Remember where I am coming from: I am a cook who hunts, not a hunter who cooks.
And why on earth do we need to be less practical or mindful of utilizing more (note that I do not say “all of”) the animals we bring home today than we did during an undefined “traditional period.” Again, I could care less whether you use more of an animal out of utilitarian reasons or reverence for the life of that animal. Whatever motivates you (the generic “you,” not you personally Phillip) is fine with me. All I care is that you use a bit more.
As for this quote, “Only recently has the idea of eating “nose-to-tail” come into vogue with the sport hunting community,” I call 100% bullshit. I spent all year last year traveling the country and in EVERY place I went I’ve found lots of hunters whose tradition has been to use a great many parts of the animals they bring home. In Alaska, Montana and Louisiana they’re all scratching their heads about the newfound popularity of it, saying, “Shit man, we’ve been doing this since forever.” Is it more popular now? Yep. But it has ALWAYS been part of hunting.
Your next point is simply what Jim Tantillo says about the slippery slope. Yeah, I get it. Not everyone wants to make confit or eat gizzards. No biggie. Again, and again, I return to the point of this essay: Eat MORE than just the breast of the bird. Is it such a hassle to toss skinned legs into a crockpot? Really?
“For many hunters, it simply isn’t worth the extra work to pluck a bird, or to save the back and legs.” One more time: I am NOT saying that people need to pluck all their birds. I am NOT saying they need to make stock. I AM suggesting — and suggesting is all I am doing — that those who breast out birds take 15 more seconds and pop off the skinned legs of the birds they bring home.
Finally, you are absolutely right in saying that those who do breast out birds are not necessarily bad people or hunters. I explicitly say that in the third paragraph of this article.
Phew. Rant over.
Amen. I just learned about breasting pheasants this year when I was given a few. I couldn’t believe people wold be so lazy and wasteful. I love using the entire bird. And when the bones are left over after cutting the cooked meat, it becomes the nicest consomme.
I’ll reply to this with a cautious, “yeah. Maybe.”
And this is as much for the other commenters here as it is for Hank.
First and foremost, I don’t get along with the holier-than-thou, evangelical approach. Didn’t work for me with organized religion, and it doesn’t work for me with hunting ethics. If you want to preach to the choir, feel free (they’re already singing along). But if you want someone to change their ways or at least to consider alternative ways of seeing things, then there needs to be another approach that doesn’t alienate the intended audience.
I can’t speak for anyone else, but one of the things I’ve always enjoyed about HAGC is that there’s an air of encouraging folks by modeling a positive behavior, rather than preaching some arbitrary ideal or by passing judgement on other hunters. This is how you change people’s minds.
I think it’s important to look past the justifications people use for behavior, and realize that the reason they’re so common (and usually so weak) is because most people have never had their norms challenged before. They’re often unprepared to explain their actions beyond, “well, I don’t know much different. This is how we always did it,” and then they fall back to some vague rationalization. It’s simply defending something they didn’t realize they needed to defend.
It’s no different than asking most hunters why they think it’s OK to hunt. You want to talk about falling back on weak platitudes? Try arguing for hunting with the statement that “we eat what we kill.” Try as you might, you can’t leave out the reality that a large percentage of modern sport hunting has nothing to do with food. Maybe that’s the elephant in the room, but it’s the truth, and regardless of personal attitudes, varmint and predator hunters are as much a part of modern sport hunting as the Hank Shaws and Tovar Cerullis. When you say, “I only kill what I’m going to eat,” it doesn’t defend Hunting. It only defends YOU.
I also think it’s worth keeping in perspective, that the “tradition” of utilizing as much as possible from the animal stems more from necessity and practicality than any special sense of reverence for the animals. It wasn’t about showing respect, but about getting everything you could from it in order to meet the needs of the household or the community. Only recently has the idea of eating “nose-to-tail” come into vogue with the sport hunting community, and while it’s a great approach, it’s still a tiny niche in the bigger picture.
Another reality is that, even in the world of “nose-to-tail”, there’s a lot of waste and a lot of picking and choosing. The disposal of a perfectly good mammal skin should be every bit as “sinful” as breasting out a teal. What about all those intestines that would make wonderful sausage casings? The truth is that we all pick and choose what we want to utilize off of an animal with varying levels of discrepancy. It’s best not to start tossing around judgements unless we’re willing to follow that track all the way to ground.
As far as the lack of waste in the modern food processing industry, that’s pure profitability there. If there weren’t a half-penny in it, it wouldn’t happen. The chicken processors back in NC used to give the feet to local houndsmen for dog food. If the houndsmen didn’t come claim them, they went in the dumpsters out back. Then someone figured out an efficient way that the feet could be productized and just like that, there was nothing left but the cluck, the cackle, and the stink. It’s all about efficiencies.
Back to breasting birds…
For many hunters, it simply isn’t worth the extra work to pluck a bird, or to save the back and legs… much less the offal. They’re not great cooks and they never will be, no matter how many books or blogs they read. For them, a cooked duck leg will always be that shiny bone with a little knot of tough meat at the joint. A pheasant leg will always be that tendon-laced, tough-as-leather part that not even the kids will eat. It’s going in the trash one way or the other.
It doesn’t make them bad hunters or bad people. And I expect most of them would be just like Hank’s example of the duck hunter with the canvasback. “I don’t want this part, but if you do, please take it. Glad to see it going to use.”
Great post. We take the “undesirable” muscle and turn it into sausage. I’m a liver ‘n’ onions girl so that’s a no-brainer. 🙂
Well said. As an aside, if you’re throwing away feathers, you need to befriend some fly fishermen…we have excellent ways of making pretty things from unwanted fur and feathers….
-josh.
Excellent article and thank you so much for the work you do Hank! This fall I served pheasant pot pies, deviled duck hearts, and gizzard confits to guests. As they delighted in the flavors, they kept asking who this “Hank-guy” was. I’ll be sure to share more recipes (and also jewelry made from the feathers) with even more friends this year!
Hannah: I’d say get good at plucking — wood ducks are a treasure. BUT, with less wonderful ducks, skinning is an option. When I have only a duck to work with, I dry pluck. Here’s a video on that method:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pZfWnkFj27M
Here’s what I do with the paraffin wax. And it is not so tough as it seems, and really produces a wonderfully clean duck:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VFtVqBKjWFs&feature=plcp&list=PLC4D77D388638077E
Hope that helps!
I completely agree and am becoming more adventurous in the kitchen. Here is my question and I guess there is no easy answer: Typically after hunting my significant other brings me 1 or maybe 2 wood ducks. Hand plucking has proven to be pretty tough (although I am just learning) and while my grandparents suggest parafin they say that they only did that when they had a large number of birds and that is a lot of work for one bird. I want to use the whole animal, and I want to be able to use the skin, but plucking seems to be the dilemma. Any easy way out?
I’ve seen many hunters just breast out birds and also look at me in amazement when I tell them that I use the legs and as much as I can. I truly believe they have no idea of how to use them. This , I believe, is true of most game, not just ducks. That’s why your website is so helpful.
As someone who cooks professionally, I’ve also seen the rise of the nose to tail and how it has become a gimmick and a trend to try and draw attention to some chef’s “genius” and drive sales. Being of Mexican descent I can tell you that this way of cooking is nothing new, like most other aspects of cooking. I believe as cooks/chefs/writers etc. we hold influence over how and what people eat and that there are many excited to learn. Teaching cooking fundamentals and taking away the gimmick aspect of whole animal cookery will help . I applaud your efforts and wait for the day when total usage is more the norm than a food trend. Mike.
Another idea if you REALLY don’t like something, is to feed it to pets. I made dog treats out of some deer kidney I was given and my dog really enjoyed them.
Jacques Pepin (famous chef) gave 5 recipes for 1 duck. All get used. That idea can be found in his: Cooking With Claudine (Jacques Pepin’s Kitchen) starting at page 95. I have made all the recipes from one duck and each was/is a delight to eat.
Nailed it, Hank. Use it or don’t shoot it. Any hunter that doesn’t want the fat from the bird, the bones for stock, or the legs for confit are missing out and wasting a natural resource.
Whatever happened to giving away the meats that you don’t like? I’ll gladly take anyone’s unwanted pheasant legs or deer hearts off their hands.
Ha ha. I linked to HAGC on Thanksgiving, which found me grilling up goose legs. I thought you and Holly would be proud – I’m a rehabilitated breaster, thanks in no small part to your blog and recipes.
I still have no interest in organ meats, tongues, or body parts that are 5% meat and 95% sinew. And with a 3 year old running amok, I don’t have time to prepare that stuff anyway…
I’m with you on this one. I even keep the feathers! it disgusts me when people mistreat their game by just breasting it. it’s so wasteful and the animal deserves better than that.
Right on x 1,000,000,000
Great post.
Very well said. I can’t imagine throwing away any part of a duck. At the very least, you can use it in sausage, confit, soup (I love duck soup). I think some people are just not adventurous in the kitchen. At the very least, I would make dog food, but never feed it to coyotes.
Well said.
Pheasant legs are awesome, and it only takes another minute to butcher out the leg when otherwise breasting a pheasant. I think the old southern European cooking methods, which undoubtedly evolved on game birds as well as domestic, are perfect for preparing leg meat.
My go-to for pheasant legs is a slow-cooker Bourguignon. This isn’t simply a toss-in-the-cooker dish, but a real preparation in the morning. When serving guests, I will typically pull the legs out, remove bones and tendons myself, and return the meat the cooker about 30 minutes before serving. Doing so is easy if you know the anatomy, which I don’t expect my guests to know. https://www.kitchenmonki.com/recipe/Pheasant_Leg_Bourguignon
I also find pheasant legs beautiful when presented in a Cassoulet. I simply use pheasant in place of chicken in this recipe. https://www.kitchenmonki.com/recipe/Chicken_Cassoulet