KG: It’s fine. I’ve been trying to get a python for the past couple of years. So talk about something great for my birthday, my husband a few years ago had found this place in Nevada with all this wild game meat so he got me all this wild game meat for my birthday, I had python, I had iguana, I had llama tongue, I can’t even tell you what else. It was amazing and my friends are like, only you would be excited about this stuff. Yeah! KG: I had just quit my husband’s company, I had actually turned it around for him financially, and I’m not in the maintenance mode so I started doing some consulting. I was literallyup on Mount Desert Island at the time and a friend asked me to write a cookbook for her because she knows I’ve been cooking all my life. I’m totally self-taught, so I started putting some numbers and things together and the bottom line is she wanted me to develop a tabletop cookbook for 100% sales and I said that’s not going to work because you’re going to need national distribution for what you want and I don’t have that networking capability up here on the island.

AH: I think what you’re saying is so important, whether you’re getting it from the wild or from your local butcher or supermarket or wherever, know the people who are handling the food. Even the fact that I was able to engage in a conversation with the guy selling me the salmon, saying, this stuff, they fed it dye, this fish was fed dye. But once you establish that relationship you’re more apt to get those honest answers. AH: Is there a period of aging or anything like that, that people want to observe? Or is it just a fresh meat? KG: If you like pork rinds and you like the fat in beans, then you will love it. I did make a recipe for it in my cookbook. KG: It will impact the hydration of the animal and what they are able to eat and absorb because then they won’t be able to eat some of the drier foods that they normally would. That’s actually a great example of why meat changes because when there is a drought the fresh green leaves that are typically in abundance will not be there so the meat will change because they’re eating more dried buds and bark. Cambium, things like that would change and make the meat not nuttier, but make it a little bit wilder than if they were eating more of the greens. KG: In the farmers’ market I just cannot stress that enough for people it’s just such an amazing source and if you don’t see something that you want, ask because there are a lot of people that don’t participate in farmers’ markets because they don’t have the time; however, they do have the source.If you want to learn to cook with whole unprocessed foods this is a very good cookbook. The title tends to make you think it is just a novelty book, something to buy as a joke. But the recipes are simple and (mostly) easy. Adrienne Hew’s books have been called “the new way to look at food” and “a brilliant masterpiece of literature” by independent reviewers. Using a combination of storytelling, scientific fact and humor, Hew makes the tedious topic of nutrition fun and accessible for anyone who loves to eat without guilt. AH: Awesome, that’s fantastic. Well Kate, thank you for spending time with us and educating us on this fabulous meat called beaver.

AH: Yeah, it scared me away from ever trying wild game meats, not that I haven’t had kangaroo. I had the opportunity to eat certain things and they were done really well; different kinds of elk and moose and so on. AH: Ah, I think that those are two good ones, but at that point, you’re not getting complicated, but I’ve had to explain to people what thyme is, not to mention cardamom isn’t even in most people’s vocabulary. AH: Oh good, that’s a very good point. I was actually just talking to my seven-year-old because I teach a cooking class at her school, and every time I talk to the kids I’m like this is what we’re going to do. I explain it to them but for some reason I can never explain it enough, I say slice something, and I get mash. It’s like you show them, but then when people don’t cook I think there’s a misconception that things are very much more difficult in the kitchen. For one, I notice that people tend to man-handle things more if you don’t give them really specific directions. KG: You’re absolutely right because if they’ve grown up with a meat and potato culture, salt and pepper is almost all they’d know. AH: Which is surprising. That, and the fact he doesn’t like nuts, walnuts or something really innocuous like that.KG: There are certain people I know within the wildlife community. If there is something going through, like when I was working out in the woods one year we had the brain disease for the moose and the deer where they were eating feces and it the worms were getting up to their brain and they were running around going crazy, it was just terrible. AH: Yes, totally.So what are some of variabilities from one season to the next, or one year to the next? Why doesn’t it always taste exactly the same? We know that it’s wild, but are there things like a drought year, how is that going to impact? AH: Okay, so when you first had beaver, tell us a little bit about that story, what was your introduction? It’s in the book.