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  Wild Turkey Schnitzel

  Serves 6 to 8

  Schnitzel is an Austrian breaded cutlet, thin and fried. The Austrian woman who first cooked it for me served it with lingonberry sauce, but it would also go well with cranberry relish or your favorite chutney. It could also be served with gravy, mashed potatoes, or on a sandwich with tomato sauce.

  1 turkey breast, cut thinly into slices, on the bias against the grain

  1 cup all-purpose flour

  1 teaspoon dried oregano

  1 teaspoon garlic powder

  1/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes

  1 egg

  1 cup panko

  1/2 teaspoon paprika

  1/2 cup grape seed oil (see Note)

  Salt and pepper

  1 lemon, cut into wedges

  Cranberry relish (page 228) or lingonberry sauce

  1. Set three plates and one wide bowl on the counter. Place a sheet of plastic wrap on the counter and lay one turkey cutlet on it. Lay a second sheet of plastic over the turkey and pound it gently with a rolling pin, meat pounder, or wine bottle until it is thin and even. Set the cutlet on the first plate. Pound the remaining cutlets and add to the first plate.

  2. Place the flour, oregano, garlic powder, and red pepper flakes on the second plate and mix. Place the egg in the bowl and beat it lightly with a fork. On the third plate, combine the panko and paprika.

  3. Heat the grape seed oil on medium heat in a skillet until a sprinkle of flour into the oil sizzles. Lay a turkey cutlet first into the flour mixture, then the egg wash, then the bread crumbs and place directly in the hot oil. Cook for about 2 minutes on each side and transfer to a rack set over a sheet tray or paper towel. Sprinkle with salt and pepper to preserve the crispness. Serve immediately with a wedge of lemon and cranberry relish or lingonberry sauce.

  Also try: wild boar, antlered game, upland game birds, rabbit, duck

  Note: Throughout this book, you’ll notice my singular affinity for grape seed oil. This is a holdover instinct from my days in professional kitchens. Grape seed oil, like other vegetable oils and unlike olive oil, has a relatively high smoke point, which makes it good for cooking. But what I like most about grape seed oil is its light, clean taste that is less assertive than that of many of the other oils and therefore doesn’t affect the flavor of the final dish. That said, you can use other vegetable oils if they are what you have on hand. If you are looking to simply “finish” a dish post-cooking, high-quality extra virgin olive oil is best.

  Wild Turkey and Oyster Stew

  Serves 8

  This dish is a play on spring and all of the wild ramps and fresh peas that pop up during the turkey season. If you can’t find wild ramps in your area, green garlic, green onions, or leeks are a nice substitute. The key is to use the fresh spring ingredients indigenous to your area. This is also a great way to use the carcass and leg meat of the turkey, which can be tougher and is best cooked for a longer time. In addition to cubing the leg meat, you can add the carcass with the breasts removed and let the meat fall off into the stew, then remove the carcass at the end of cooking.

  1 head of garlic

  1 tablespoon olive oil

  6 tablespoons butter

  All-purpose flour

  Salt and pepper

  2 cups wild turkey leg meat, cubed, plus leg bones and carcass if available

  1 cup ramps, green onions, or leeks, sliced into 1-inch lengths

  1/2 cup poblano pepper, diced

  1 cup oyster mushrooms

  1 cup dried shiitake or porcini mushrooms

  2 slices lemon

  3 bay leaves

  1 cup Marsala

  6 cups turkey stock (page 214)

  2 cups leafy greens, such as kale or Swiss chard, chopped

  1 cup fresh peas

  1 cup fresh flat-leaf parsley leaves

  1 cup raw oysters, either canned or freshly shucked, then diced

  2 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F. Place the head of garlic in tinfoil and drizzle with olive oil. Close the tinfoil and place in the oven. Cook until the cloves are soft, about 1 hour. Remove from the oven and squeeze the cloves out of the garlic skin. Mash with a spoon on a cutting board and set aside.

  2. Melt half of the butter in a large heavy-bottomed stew pot over medium heat until it is frothy and bubbling. Dust the turkey with flour, salt, and pepper and brown in the butter on both sides, about 5 minutes total. Transfer the turkey to a plate and set aside.

  3. To the same pot, add the remaining butter, ramps, poblano pepper, and mushrooms. Season with salt to help release the juices and let sweat until tender, about 5 minutes more.

  4. Add the turkey, roasted garlic, lemon, and bay leaves and cook for 2 minutes more. Sprinkle with 1 tablespoon of flour and stir for 1 minute to cook the flour. Deglaze with the Marsala and cook until reduced by half. Add the stock and bring to a simmer. Cook, covered, for 1 hour, and in the last 30 minutes, add the peas, greens, parsley, and diced oysters. Finish with Worcestershire and salt and pepper to taste.

  Also try: upland game birds, rabbit, squirrel

  Whiskey-Glazed Turkey Breast

  Serves 4

  Turkey feathers are quite easy to pluck as long as you do just a few at a time so the skin doesn’t tear. It is better to leave the skin on, because attempting to remove it while the feathers are still on can result in a feathery mess. If you don’t have skin on your turkey breast, simply layer it with bacon or lard before cooking. It is essential that you brine the breast meat before cooking it. I have a friend that uses a brine of simple filtered water from the sea, which has ample salt, then after 24 hours, switches to a bath of unsalted purified water. Or if you’re not feeling quite as adventurous, you can also use homemade brine.

  6 tablespoons butter

  1 turkey breast, skin on and brined (page 220)

  Salt and pepper

  8 to 10 strips of bacon, or equivalent in lard (for breasts without skin only)

  1 cup turkey stock (page 214)

  3 tablespoons honey

  6 tablespoons whiskey

  1 tablespoon grated orange zest

  2 tablespoons freshly squeezed orange juice

  1/2 teaspoon cayenne

  1. Preheat the oven to 325°F. In an ovenproof skillet or Dutch oven, heat 2 tablespoons of the butter until it begins to bubble. Sprinkle the skin of the brined turkey breast with salt and pepper. If the breast is without skin, wrap it with bacon or lard and fasten with toothpicks or kitchen twine as needed. Place the breast skin side down in the butter, sprinkle the underside with salt and pepper, and let the skin brown for about 5 minutes. Turn it over and add the stock. Cover with foil or a lid and transfer to the oven.

  2. In a separate skillet, melt the remaining 4 tablespoons of butter over medium heat. Whisk in the honey until well incorporated. Add the whiskey along with the orange zest and juice and cayenne and whisk together. Turn the heat to low and let the glaze reduce by half. Turn off the heat and set aside.

  3. Once the turkey has cooked for 10 minutes, brush with half of the glaze and recover. Roast for 20 more minutes, brush with the remaining glaze, leave uncovered, and increase the temperature to 400°F. Cook for 15 to 20 minutes more, or until the internal temperature reads 140° to 150°F.

  4. Remove the turkey from the oven, cover with foil for 10 minutes before slicing, and serving.

  Also try: upland game birds

  Swedish Turkey Meatballs

  Makes 4 small portions

  This is a traditional Scandinavian dish that is comforting and rich. The addition of lingonberry sauce at the end gives it an underlying sweetness, while the yogurt gives it a tang. The meat and gravy is ideally suited for mashed potatoes, which makes this hearty dish especially good for fall turkey season.

  6 tablespoons butter

  1/2 cup finely diced shallots (you can use a food processor for this)

  4 cloves garlic, minced (you can use a food
processor for this)

  1 pound ground turkey leg meat

  1 whole egg

  3/4 cup bread crumbs

  1/4 cup sherry

  1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce

  1/2 cup chopped fresh parsley

  1/4 teaspoon ground allspice

  1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg

  1/2 teaspoon ground cardamom

  1/2 teaspoon sea salt

  1/2 teaspoon freshly ground pepper

  3 cups turkey stock (page 214)

  3 tablespoons all-purpose flour

  1 tablespoon lingonberry sauce or red currant jelly, plus more for serving

  1/4 cup plain yogurt

  1. In a skillet on medium heat melt 2 tablespoons of the butter until it bubbles. Add the shallots and garlic and sweat over low heat until soft and translucent, about 4 minutes. Sprinkle with a pinch of salt to help release the moisture. Turn off the heat and let cool for 5 minutes.

  2. In a mixing bowl, combine the turkey, egg, bread crumbs, sherry, Worcestershire sauce, parsley, allspice, nutmeg, cardamom, salt, and pepper. Add the cooled shallot mixture and incorporate.

  3. Shape the turkey mixture into 1-inch balls and place on a sheet tray or plate. You should end up with about twenty meatballs.

  4. Heat the turkey stock in a small pot and bring to a simmer, then turn off the heat and set aside.

  5. In the skillet, melt the remaining 4 tablespoons of butter over medium heat. Cook the balls for about 1 minute on each side, just so they are browned but not cooked through. Depending on the size of your pan, you may need to cook them in batches so as not to overcrowd the pan. With a slotted spoon or tongs, transfer to a clean plate.

  6. Once all of the meat has been browned, use the pan juices to make a sauce. Whisk in the flour until it is thick and clumpy and let cook for a few minutes while you whisk. A thick paste will form. Next, whisk in the warm stock a little at a time until you have a light brown sauce.

  7. Let the sauce thicken slightly, then return the turkey meatballs to the pan. Cook, uncovered, over low heat for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the sauce reduces further. Turn off the heat and whisk in the lingonberry sauce and yogurt. Serve immediately with additional lingonberry sauce on the side.

  Also try: wild boar, antlered game, upland game birds, rabbit, squirrel, duck

  No, I’m not a good shot, but I shoot often.

  —THEODORE ROOSEVELT

  2

  The Village

  Every year, as hunting season begins in the heat of an Indian summer, my first hunt is in the Village.

  While I drive on the thin line of blacktop through the southeast portion of Arkansas, the mist gets thicker as the earth slinks away from the sun. There is something elemental here, evidence of a once vibrant life that’s passed. Many things are half-collapsed. I see overturned trucks and pervasive rust. Some towns come and go with each flutter of the eye, and some linger a little bit longer . . . like McGehee, a town that emits a sudden flash of light in the gray night; where far back in a cornfield is a football stadium so bright and so polished that for a moment it is the most gentrified city in the south. The stadium is full, containing 3,881 townsfolk and all of their pride. And then I see why—a rough-hewn crooked wooden sign on my right, hand painted by a townsman, announces that in the next thirty seconds, I will be passing through the home of the Owls, the State Football Champions of Arkansas.

  Along the lake is a house that smells of cooking, and a housekeeper named Betty, who is still repairing the ravages of the night before as the sun sets again. Men sit in antique lawn chairs, regarding the mystic order of the heavens, wondering what part of it all is theirs. Their families are called the Mancinis and the Berberas and the Pagonis, the descendents of the Italian and Lebanese immigrants that came to this place in search of wealth.

  On the great lawn beside the lake, a black barrel smoker slowly rotates the bodies of twenty-five chickens, their juices dripping, their skin bewitched to a dark gold. Whiskey and thirty-year-old Châteauneuf-du-Pape appear from the depths of the cellar. There are ribs soaked in apple juice, cooked until the edges are rendered to a caramel crust, and tabbouleh and hummus, and crawfish corn muffins to honor the visitors from New Orleans, and a porcelain bowl of baked beans as sweet as candy and musty with hickory smoke.

  In every direction are the flickering embers of lighted tobacco floating across sun-weathered eyes, smoke-flavored conversations, and a man injecting an imagined noun with the wave of his hand. On the mantel, a Bundt cake drips with sticky white icing.

  Roger Mancini leans his shiny head back on a green antique lawn chair, his teeth clamped firmly down on the cigar protruding from the side of his mouth. He is conveying his wisdom to some young men who lean in intently: “Don’t be wishin’ you were fishin’,” I hear him say. He turns to listen to his Italian neighbor Nero play his guitar, making up lyrics as he goes. They take turns; Roger interjects a few, then Nero returns. And then more people come and sit and sip and sing, and a few others play, too, and it sounds like poetry.

  Across the great sloping lawn, the boys on a party barge can be heard howling in the distance, an octave too high, weaving along the lake between the cypress trees suspended on the surface of the water.

  Inside, one of the wealthiest men in Arkansas sits at the long mahogany table and tilts his head back and looks up at the ceiling. He will spend five months of this year on his boat, drifting through the Southern Hemisphere, and the rest in this unknown village, deep in the Delta.

  Cassidy walks in with a bag of bread from his commercial bakery in New Orleans, and the Commish glides in and out with the rib grease on his hands. He is a man of few words, but when he does talk, people pause to listen.

  When you leave this place to find sleep, you always go kicking into the night, through the bug swarms in the pool of a single fluorescent streetlight, the hound dogs prancing after you with saliva spraying from their jowls. And you look at the clock and it is one. And almost immediately afterward, you look at the clock and find it is five. And you climb out of bed with the taste of whiskey still in your blood and quickly swallow some instant coffee and a banana.

  This is the rhythm of the Arkansas dove hunt. This is how I always find it year after year, untouched by time. Dove hunting is a social affair, to be sure, and so I imagine there are many variations on the same theme around the country on this day, the opening day of dove season.

  The Commish always arrives ten minutes early in his white pickup. It is one thing in life you can rely on. His truck is full of gear that changes only slightly, depending on what is available to hunt. But it always contains the cooler, full of ice, water, Gatorade, Coke, and beer. And there are many articles of camouflage, from chairs to hats to rubber boots. And there is a dog named Humphrey, a golden Lab who likes to put his tongue to the wind as we drive swiftly along the dirt road in the unquiet darkness of the morning.

  The Commish is fifty-eight and is both a planter and a banker. He oversees a chain of banks, and owns and operates thousands of acres of farmland. As we drive along the road together, the flatland and rich alluvial soil are partitioned—700 acres here, 600 acres there—and a lot of what you see is his. In the Village, people are many things at once—a planter and a lawyer, a storeowner and a doctor. This is how people have always forged a life for themselves along the great Mississippi Delta.

  When the first pioneer farmers entered the Mississippi River Valley, they found a formidable and forbidding world of dense forests and swamps that evoked a primeval world. There were enormous stands of oak, gum, cottonwood, hickory, pecan, elm, pine, and cypress, some more than five hundred years old.

  These early-nineteenth-century farmers carved out plantations and small farms for themselves and set out on a long struggle to cultivate the Delta—a struggle that meant controlling floods, draining swamps, and clearing the land. The land along the powerful Mississippi River was continually crushed by heavy floods, including the most devastating Great
Mississippi Flood of 1927, which changed lives for generations. Running in some places to a depth of 100 feet, the flooding also left behind even richer soil.

  This place has always been a slowly cascading sequence of anomalies; a place where people fought the elements and the river for decades to become great established families, transforming their lives from hunting panthers in the overgrown cane jungle that engulfed their plantations, to attending European opera festivals—this place would come to be known as the Alluvial Empire. There was a time not long ago when cotton was king and the settlers of this region were considered “the aristocrats of the earth.”

  The Mississippi River and its wild chocolate waves at once created great wealth and great destruction for those who fought to tame it. Above all, the river perpetuated the plantation system, which prospered in the antebellum period but finally collapsed under the pressure of the Great Depression and World War II. Sharecropping replaced slavery after the Civil War, as Chinese and then Italians migrated in hopes of owning land. They had a cashless economy that relied on the rise and fall of cotton to fuel commerce, keeping many tenant farmers dependent on landowners.

  The contemporary Delta remains a product of its plantation heritage. There still remains a modern form of sharecropping, now called tenant farming. But no one lives in the few remaining old plantation homes that glide by our window as we drive, because no one can afford the rent—another reminder that poverty runs deep here, as does old wealth.

  The Delta has one of the lowest population densities in the American South, sometimes less than one person per square mile. The demographics are the same as they were before the Civil War. This is one of those preserved places, its authenticity both inspiring and heartbreaking at once. It is where you make your own destiny and you make your own food.