My Grandfather was likely one of the last of his generation of hunter/gatherers from old New England. He grew up hunting and fishing in Bedford. He’d hunt anything that was edible. And he believed that almost everything was edible too. That was his instinctive driving force- to eat, not to kill, and certainly not to display trophies in some smoky dark paneled den with a billiard table and a fireplace.
For him, food from the wild was a gift to be sought out and savored. I can remember my Grandfather saying that anything can be made into a tasty stew, rabbit, porcupine, snake, even turtle. He was a true believer in gastronomic diversity. Imagine roast pigeon, tripe, cow’s tongue, chicken feet, and of course-- brains, to name a few.
He was was equally indiscriminate about fishing. He loved fresh water eel, and any fish really, including smelts. I remember my grandmother cooking up a a batch of sardine sized smelts dipped in cornmeal and fried crispy brown. I never had any fish as good, and most people will never taste what I experienced.
The key to all these hunter/gatherer foods is freshness. The fish were swimming in the bucket when he cleaned them, and Gram’s frying pan was at the ready with hot oil. Today, we think fresh means, not frozen or canned, but foods that are grown or caught thousands of miles away, packed on ice and trucked or flown across country to a regional distributor, delivered to our local supermarket, then stored in a warehouse sized walk-in cold storage unit, and finally brought out for display in small quantities to appear as though they were picked and saved just for us, is well, a big fake. I’ve seen piles of limp, almost rotting Swiss Chard, grown 3000 miles away, drowned from over spritzing, and looking more like something I’d put in my compost pile, being sold as “fresh greens”. Yuk.
Gathering was even more exciting and surprising. Exciting because it involved a hike or adventure, and surprising because food from the wild is a discovery. Following the seasons, he would relish whatever happened to be there for the taking at the moment. Dandelion greens and fiddlehead ferns in spring were a favorite, but later in the season, he’d find all types of mushrooms and wild carrots (Queen Anne's Lace), and many other wild root vegetables. Fruits, melon rinds and rhubarb were canned and made into jams of incredible flavor and taste. Wild Blueberries were gathered by the bucket full. Blueberry pies were made with a gallon of tiny pea sized berries. Summer also meant trips to the beach and buckets of periwinkles or muscles pulled from the rocks, and usually steamed, but often eaten live- - Yankee sushi.
This simple view of food being everything around us has pretty much become extinct in our way of life, and I admit, while I enjoy most of the food from the wild, some wild foods were an acquired taste, and I wouldn’t miss them. Yet, as we drive to a Whole Foods and other fake replicas of freshness in search of something good to eat, I know my Grandfather would much rather be walking in the woods, or wading in tide pools, and stumble onto something waiting for him to pluck and eat in a most primordial way, rather than pushing a cart down a crowded isle of busy shoppers-- pretending to be in search of fresh food.
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