The MeatEater Podcast - Ep. 182: You Wanna Talk About Killing Hogs?

Episode Date: August 19, 2019

Steven Rinella talks to Jesse Griffiths, Corinne Schneider, and Janis Putelis.Subjects discussed: tons of audience death stories; flounder gigging in Texas; the human egret; more about Long Tong Jani; frying fish with a passion; Steve's strong dislike of batter; the smallmouth bass’ trashy cousin, the largemouth bass; titillation; trapping feral hogs; the garlic-tipped fork; custom ordered feral cow sausage; Jesse's first book and his upcoming book on cooking feral hogs; and more. Connect with Steve and MeatEaterSteve on Instagram and TwitterMeatEater on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, and YoutubeShop MeatEater Merch  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hey folks, exciting news for those who live or hunt in Canada. You might not be able to join our raffles and sweepstakes and all that because of raffle and sweepstakes law, but hear this. OnX Hunt is now in Canada. It is now at your fingertips, you Canadians. The great features that you love in OnX are available for your hunts this season. Now the Hunt app is a fully functioning GPS with hunting maps that include public and crown land, hunting zones, aerial imagery, 24K topo maps, waypoints and tracking. You can even use offline maps to see where you are

without cell phone service as a special offer. You can get a free three months to try out OnX if you visit onxmaps.com slash meat. If you listen to the Meat Eater podcast, and obviously you do because here you are listening to it, or watch the show Meat Eater on Netflix, you have seen and kind of met our buddy Remy Warren, who is, I'll say, I've said it before and I'll say it again. One of the most just skilled accomplished hunters I've ever had the

pleasure of spending time out in the woods with. We are launching a new podcast with Remy called Cutting the Distance. And in Cutting the Distance, it's not like a conversational show. Cutting the Distance is an educational show where Remy walks you through situations and scenarios from his life and gives you actionable, usable information, instruction, intelligence, inspiration about how to become a better hunter. And there's no one more suited to give you this information than remy warren so go find it cutting the distance the same places you can find the meat eater podcast give it a listen give severely bug bitten and in my case underwearless meat eater podcast you can't predict anything presented by on x hunt creators of the most comprehensive digital mapping system for hunters download the hunt app from the itunes

or google play store Know where you stand with Onyx. Jesse Griffith, are you interested? You okay if we talk about death, dead folks for a minute? Sure. You don't mind starting out that way? At home. It's a good icebreaker.

We're sitting here in your restaurant. Tell people where we are. We're on the east side of Austin, Texas at Dai Due. Early in the morning, just about to get ready for lunch service. About to talk about death. Tell people about the name, Dai Due. Dai Due is... And how you kind of regret it. Yeah.

It's part of a... No, spot on. Part of an Italian proverb that that means from the two kingdoms of nature choose food with care i saw it in a book a long time that's good though man i would just name the damn restaurant that the whole well in italian i should have just done the whole thing and insisted that everybody always say the entire name every time yeah um no i just didn't done it in english oh tell me the title again from the two kingdoms of nature choose food with care oh it's

good yeah they mean plant an animal that see that's contentious oh that's what I would take it to me now it could be landed sea could be plant an animal it wasn't specified in the book I mean I like I kind of like that ambiguity too when'd you stumble across that? Oh, years ago. You look real Italian. Yeah, thanks. Yeah.

I'm joking. Yeah. He doesn't look remotely Italian. No, no, not at all. You look like a Scotsman. Welsh. Welsh? Welsh.

Yeah. A Welshman? A Welshman. Yeah, to be clear. I'm a Welshman that owns a restaurant with an Italian name that serves mostly Mexican and German food.

The old Mexican-German? Yeah, yeah. So yeah, we came across that, and I really liked it and settled on that for the name of that hypothetical restaurant that I wanted to always own, and then I stuck to it. We got corrected. Sure, everybody does. Politely, I hope.

Here in the capital city of Texas, we mentioned to a press officer. Oh. Isn't that who squared? What were we calling it? We were calling it Dai Dway. I guess, yeah. And he said, you say it again? Dai Dway.

Yeah, that's right. It was a slight correction. It's a slight correction. You pronounce it like my mom does to this day. Your mom doesn't know how to say it? She's going to listen to this. So I'm going to say she just says it her own way. Got it.

Okay. On to the sobering stories I was going to tell you about. Just to bring you up to speed. I know you're a busy man. We did a podcast recently with our good friend, Pat Durkin. And Pat Durkin, he's a great admirer of obituaries of hunters. And he was telling us about this obituary. He read where a guy had died hunting and in the obituary that said that it

was an otherwise successful hunt. But this guy wrote it with this, it's kind of this crazy story where he said his dad, this guy, he's in New York. And he said his dad had always joked that if he can ever get a 10 point buck, he knows he'll die. Like his death prophecy was he'll shoot a 10 point and die. So one day he's hunting and shoots a buck and walks over there and counts and there's 10 points and he stands up and he thinks to himself, oh boy, now it will come. But nothing happens and he lives. And his kids would always joke when he made this prophecy that he would kill a 10 point buck and die. His kids always joke when he made this prophecy that he would kill a 10-point buck and die. His kids always joke that we're going to drag the buck out of the woods, and then we'll come back and get you.

Eight years goes by from when he gets a 10-point. And they're all out hunting the woods. Their mother's there. Kids are there. Dad's there. And they're checking in with dad on the radio the dad shoots they check in you've got one they're gonna check back in a little bit eventually he keeps trying to get his dad on the radio but he can't raise him so eventually walks over and finds his dad laying, sitting against a tree, stone dead.

Just a heart attack, just killed him. Calls the mom and brother, everybody comes over to the tree and they have a big cry. Then they're trying to figure out, because he did shoot, and they go find where he had shot a buck. And it was an eight-point buck. And he'd shot an eight point buck had dragged it a little ways had gutted it must have not been feeling good went back and sat against his tree and expired and they called the medical you know called 9-1-1 and everything and they came out and they were going to load him on this little gurney thing to carry him out of there,

and the kids grabbed the buck, and they said they had the buck back to the truck before dad was. It's a good story. It's a good story. You like that one, Yanni? I do. You left out that little detail about where he drug it from. Did you do that purposely? No, tell me.

About how it was on the neighbors. You know what I'm talking about? Yeah, I read the email. Oh, he drug it off the neighbors yeah i didn't remember that part so i sort of in my mind i was kept thinking like it wasn't really like shooting the buck that did it it's a long email i'm trying to it was the fact that he had like shot it on the neighbors just slightly because remember he goes the sun goes and kind of backtracks because I think he ends up finding the heart and the liver, maybe. Anyways, he backtracks and he goes, oh, he shot it just onto the neighbors. Oh, no, no.

You're confusing another story the same dude told. I'm going to come back to that story because this tells the character of his old man. But go ahead. No, I know. Okay. No, that was a whole other story. Right. About the hearts and the livers it was. But he still backtracked his dad's dying buck to the neighbors.

And so I felt like it wasn't really necessarily just the killing the buck. It was the fact that like it was on the neighbors. And all of a sudden there had to be this great excitement and, you know, exertion of quickly dragging it under over a fence. If you're not used to doing that kind of stuff, I can tell you. Oh, yeah. He said, I backtracked. I head down the hill and find a blood trail.

I take it to where I can see where the deer had fallen about 40 yards onto the neighboring property. I see where the buck had been dragged guts in up a steep hill to our side of the property line. There it was gutted. Here's the thing that speaks to the character of his old man. He says he's out hunting with his old man, and they're hunting just north of Syracuse. And they're out in the woods. He's 12, even though he wasn't supposed to be hunting at that age.

And here's a shot behind him. His dad's sitting somewhere. He's sitting here. And the kid, the guy that's writing in, here's a shot, a shot behind him his dad's sitting somewhere he's sitting here and the kid the guy that's writing in here's a shot bam behind him and he gets cold and wants to wander around so he goes back to investigate what happened at the shot and realized the guy had gutted a deer and left the heart and liver so he takes the heart out of the gut pile and later winds up back at the truck to meet up with his dad. And his dad explains, you know, I found some gut pile and the guy only took the heart. So I grabbed the liver. That's a good one. the other dude wrote in hold on let me check this one real quick

here's another one about guys dying this kid his uncle's got type 1 diabetes and dies from complications of type 1 diabetes and he had had the lower part of his right leg amputated at the knee down. Did I make clear this is his kid's uncle? No. There's a hundred, there's a dude. Okay, there's this mug who's a kid, kiddish. His uncle dies. His uncle dies of complications from type 1 diabetes.

Not only that, but in his struggles with the disease, had had his right leg removed from the knee down. Okay. He dies a few days before deer opener. They have the wake on the opener. So he can't go out hunting in the morning. Gets through the funeral deal. deal runs out to go hunting here comes a nice buck shoots the buck buck falls over and he comes down and realizes that the buck is missing

from the knee down of the leg that's that's bizarre yeah of the leg. That's bizarre. Yeah. I think that he speaks to Yanni because Yanni believes in summoning stuff and whatnot. That he summoned a three-legged deer? I also believe this is an amazing coincidence.

You're comfortable with amazing coincidences? Yeah. Yanni, should we get into the corner crossing things has been uh sorry to be taking up all your time here jesse it's all right um are there no more stories about death no i got more oh but one's too sad i'll tell you no we'll talk about court no i'm gonna tell you the super sad one it's just like it's like it's almost like you shouldn't even bring it up. Well, maybe you shouldn't. Really?

You want to hear a quick one where no one dies? Yes. But there's an injury? Fine. It's not a bad injury. Great. I was sharing a story about my brother-in-law. You familiar with barefoot skiing?

You a skier? How old are you? I'm not a skier. But you remember when people used to water ski a lot before they all start wakeboarding yes i do and you are you familiar with barefoot skiing i know but if i say hey man we were out barefooting for the weekend no i'd have no idea what you're talking about skiing with no skis okay just standing there barefoot this is not something i ever learned how to do nor tried snow ski no man water skiing

okay so like my brother-in-law used to be into this he you let you put a wetsuit on and you lay on your back in the water and you got the rope and the ski handle rope handle in your hands and you take your bare feet and imagine like you're stretched out feet toward the boat and you take your feet and you're like holding a rope between your feet and you angle your toes like a little ramp and the boat just there he goes takes off and you eventually get where you're skimming along the water surface then in a dramatic move you spring up and then you're skiing with no skis just toes curled up hauling ass you gotta be going fast to get that kind of go fast

am i mistaken that you gotta go like like a... I'm not going to know the speed. 36 or something like that? And a lot of people ski at 25 or something? Either way, you're hauling ass. Well, my brother-in-law, I was telling about on this here digital radio program, my brother-in-law hits a sunning bluegill and drove the dorsal fin up into his foot. Oh, God. And had to have it surgically removed.

Well, this guy is writing in. They used to have this big high dive. You see where this is going. Yeah, what fish? I feel like he hit a yellow perch. Yeah. Yeah. Hit a yellow perch, drove the dorsal fin up into his foot.

Took him a while to figure out what happened. No, no, no. Not his foot. His head. His head. He dove. Oh. He dove.

And at first, he thought he had just opened up his hands. Why don't you bring up the damn stories? You know them so well. I just told you. They're all sitting in a stack, all printed out, highlighted and shit on my desk. But I didn't know that we were doing this thing at Dai Duet. If you're like Joe story dudes wrote in about, tell the damn stories. It's in his head.

That's why he calls his email. It's called the Bluegill Top Fin Story Topper. Maybe. It's pretty good. It's good, but it's not as good as mine his isn't as good as mine well yeah this is better because it happened to him that helps mine just happened to my brother-in-law and i wasn't even there but mine's better something about barefoot skiing makes it better that or maybe that had to be surgically removed this guy's dad i think just got it out with a pair of pliers or something you're right needle nose pliers what else we got

you got one more second yeah let's see if i know this next one you don't you don't one last one this is good this is going to be, are you ready for a touching one? Is it injury or death? No, it's just that someone wanted me to say hi to his kid. Oh, yeah, yeah. We're saying hi to a little kid named Mac McDonald. Mac McDonald.

Mac McDonald, nine years old, likes to hunt deer. Okay, ready? Tell people what you're going to do tonight. I'm going flounder gigging tonight. Talk about that for a minute that's pretty interesting yeah it's uh it's probably my favorite uh outdoor activity if i had to name one because it's it's um it's fish hunting i think go out in a boat uh it's got a big bank of lights on the front and go out uh right at dark get there when it's uh that's just as the sun's going down you put the lights out and you start cruising around and about do you mind sharing with people uh what state this occurs in oh this is texas yeah yeah so we're going to be in the

rockport area a lot of flounder gigging happens on the middle coast kind of that rockport um and that's the Gulf of Mexico. Yeah, it's on the bay side. And so it's on the bay side of the barrier islands in there. You don't do it out in the Gulf per se, but like in the base. And go out there and just cruise around to see a flounder that's kind of buried itself in the sand or in the oyster shell. And you just look for a flounder shape.

And after a while, you get good at spotting it. It's like spotting anything like a morel or a blackberry. You know, it takes you a minute to... That's funny. Steve was just writing some voiceover for a show about... Sight image. Sight image, and he used the... The morel analogy.

Example. Once you see one, then you see more. Yeah. don't doesn't not the other day the other day I saw one wham and then never find the second one man really always the second one huh yeah we go on well I mean you it's the same thing you just you're looking for that shape I mean you know some false alarms and sometimes they're really buried in there but then you have a long airboat just you're looking for that shape um and there's some false alarms and sometimes they're really buried in there but then you have a long airboat yeah you're an airboat the only the only downside of the whole thing that the only thing that i don't really enjoy is the noise from the airboat oh it drives me nuts man yeah you you wear ear pro right no it's not that

loud oh it's just an it's an annoyance but it's so beautiful with the clear water and you see all the sea life. You see there's blue crabs and stingrays and redfish and drum and sheep's head and mullet. Can you screw the mullet? You know, there's certain months that you can't. I have. I'm pretty sure the statute of limitations is up on that one. You got some big ass. I was just fishing down out of Rockport for redfish.

Yeah. There's some big mullet down there. Some freaking giant mullet to the point where I would see them up ahead and think I was looking at a redfish coming our way. Right. Yeah, some big ones. Throwing awake and shit. Yeah.

No, I stuck a mullet and we uh and we we filleted and smoked it it's actually pretty good because most that's one of those trash fish they'll tell you you can't eat uh we also started like white mullet is that yeah yeah jumping mullet they call them yeah yeah me my brother danny's when we when we used to backpack in mexico fishing a lot we would catch them just to eat them cook them on a campfire you know yeah they're fine yeah they're fine and gar too will when we've gigged up in the up way into the colorado river from the bay up into the river and you'll see a lot of gar up there and we've gigged those as well uh i want to talk more about the flounder gigging but why uh why why do some guys use why don't

people use bow rigs bow fishing rigs you can't absolutely is the gig more effective i think it is i mean the guides probably prefer that i mean that's just spend less time chasing arrows and shit you know what they do and because when you're moving in an airboat what we found with bows is you shoot and then you immediately go over the right and your things your arrow's stuck in the bottom of the damn lake right the boat's 50 yards down there not that far but you know yeah this is less efficient moving pretty slow in this boat and uh he he carries the the captain carries a gig with him up in the front of the boat when he he sees a flounder, he jabs it into the ground and stops that boat.

That's a good trick, man. Real quick. I mean, you just come to an immediate and harsh stop. And then he points and you gig. Sometimes you can't see it. And he's just like, it's right there. You're like, where? And then it'll just appear.

And then you gig it and you have like a real kind of graceful swooping motion to get it back into the boat into a big metal box and then get the gig off and then keep going after them and it's just it's a lot of fun i mean it's a limit of five fish five per person what's a big one a big one is i i mean i think a big flounder is over 16 inches i mean people might disagree with that but that's i mean that's a sizable flounder is over 16 inches. I mean, people might disagree with that, but that's a sizable flounder. A really big one is three or four pounds, pushing 20-plus inches. And the biggest one I've ever gigged was eight and a half pounds. I don't remember the length, but probably the 26-inch range was a monster.

Are you reluctant to share the name of the guy you like to go with for fear that he will become overbooked yeah and you will have a hard time getting a slot or are you generous are you so generous i'm i'm generous but i'm and i've named him before and i'm not telling you i don't i don't want you to name him because i might go with him i'm getting mixed i'm getting mixed signals here but you know yanni's the fairest person I know. Ask Yanni. Yanni. What about this?

I have a suggestion. Yanni's the most reasonable, fairest person I've ever met. What if... Wow, thanks. We go flounder gigging with said captain, and then after that, you release the name of this captain. I like it. You mean like we, as in the people here at this table? You mean you and your daughter tonight?

Yeah, it's me and my daughter tonight. Oh. He's not going to like. Nothing's going to change in the next 24 hours. He's not going to cancel you to take some other hoser. I know that. I'm thinking into the future. I am.

I mean, but he is booked solid. He also does late trips. It sounds like he couldn't be any busier anyway. Yeah, but what are you going to do when he catches wind what if he catches wind that you did not name presented with an opportunity to plug his business and declined i'm i'm not only getting mixed signals now i'm starting to feel trapped well what i would do is i would say this i would say uh you should say this say over the years of fishing with this gentleman i've developed deep love for him and concern for him and since i can't vet and control the kind of riffraff that might come and

book a trip with him and potentially put him in a compromising situation. I wouldn't want to do this because what I'd rather do is spend time hand-picking clients that I send his way who I know are good tippers. If he heard that, he'd know I was full of shit. So it doesn't matter. So you're not just going to say that. Let's not name them because I want to go.

I was just about to name him. Oh, you were. I was. I want Yanni to decide. No, you got to name him because the name of his charter service is so good. It's a good hint. It's Captain David Dupnik with Surrender at Sunrise out of Aransas Pass. No, that's not it.

Surrender at Sunrise. Surrender at Sunrise. I don't think you should have done that man come on i think it's okay jesse was just telling me man the guy only takes off only doesn't work in november and that's because gigging season's closed he works every other day of the year so and he takes two trips a night he'll take a late trip tonight like when we get back he has people on call and they'll show up at midnight and go back out. And he'll take two trips. He's a maniac. But here's the deal.

When you and me go down there to go do this, which we're going to do, is he going to give whoever he's got lined up, is he going to boot them? No. To make room for us? Well, I mean, I can't speak for him, but I doubt that. We're going to have to book a little further in advance now. Even though he's going to

know that we sent a ton of business his way. It's the right thing to do. Okay. Yanni was right. He always gets his limit. Yes. He doesn't like to go home. No. No, he doesn't like to go. Surrender at sunrise. Yeah, he doesn't like to go home no no he doesn't like to go surrender at sunrise yeah he doesn't like to go home till he gets his limit and he's adamant about it and he's he is good at it i call him the

human egret a man can see a fish in the mud uh you know 15 feet to your left and you're standing to his left it's It's uncanny. And that big flounder that I gigged, I'm not going to say I saw, he said it was so buried in the sand that all he saw, and this was in December during a cold front, and we were in deep water, probably two to three feet of water, and it was windy. And he said all he could see were the eyes,

and he could tell from how far apart those eyes were that that was a big flounder. But he told me that. I mean, so it's real. He said, that is a big flounder. And I looked down. All I saw was white sand and waves. And he just grabbed the gig and said, push down here.

So my big trophy flounder was more of just like me applying gravity to a pole that's what we laugh about with guides and clients it's like yeah there's a lot of there's a lot of guide client situations where the guy would have honestly done a lot better oh had the client not been there like oh my god you're adding nothing yeah you're detracting. That's like a contracting joke. I remember someone said once, in describing a bad employee, he said, having that guy here is like losing two good guys. I want to remember that one. Oh.

I'm sure that probably comes up every now and then in the kitchen. So that, did you feel you were described that way back when you were Long Tong Yanni? No. Did you used to be a kitchen man? No, no. I feel like I did a good job. I hustled. He was a kitchen man, and they called him Long Tong Yanni because he had some, apparently,

old-style long tongs that he used while working the grill. Well, you're working smarter. Why would you get your hands all hot and burned? It's like, yeah, you use a longer tong. I mean, it's not like ridiculously long. Just like your- Talk about tong. I'm trying to think.

What's the standard? It's probably like an eight-inch tong, right? Maybe 12. And you're probably talking about those 18 inch yeah long yeah because that grill was deep and it was tall it had like the uh the refrigerated sliders underneath it you know so even with my height you know when you'd reach over it you know i had no hair on uh not that i have much now on the other side of my forearm but i had none on my forearms then yeah you got nothing to prove just by burning your arms?

You ever think about just being in the kitchen here and seeing all this kitchen activity? Yeah. In the course of three years, I came in there not knowing almost anything. I had some kitchen experience, but really almost none. And we started off at, how do you say it? Garmanger? Mm-hmm. Yeah. Salad station, basically.

Running the fryer,yer doing salads maybe a little bit of dessert work and then work through uh we had like a fake wood-fired pizza oven so there was what made it fake there was logs burning but there's like a big gas element in the back you know shooting are you kidding me no i mean i think that's pretty common, really. Gas assist. Yeah. Oh, that's a gas assist. And then we did all kinds of apps out of that station. And then you come back over to the main line. And I think I went to saute. And then I ended up at grill.

And then maybe for a little bit, I did some expediting right there at the end. What does that mean? Where basically you're just kind of helping everybody out, and you're just calling tickets and just making sure that all the food that is on one ticket is going to be coming out together. Like you look down at the saute guy, and you're like, hey, dude, I need two linguinis and a capellini and an orecchiette coming up in two. And then you look at the grill guy, and you're like,

you've got those two hanger steaks coming, right? Yep. And then on down the line and just make sure that it's all coming together. And you're working with've got those two hanger stakes coming right yep and then on down the line and just make sure that it's all coming together and you're working with the front of the house expediter that's then kind of doing that and making sure that their waiter is there to then move that food out to where it's going to go so as a true restaurant man jesse when you hear him saying that do you are you thinking like this guy knows what's up that's spot on it's spot absolutely i mean that's a bigger restaurant than ours.

I mean, he's got an inside expo, an outside expo. Yeah, on a really busy night, we sat, I think, just over 100. I think on a really busy night, we would really busy, we'd do 400. Oh, yeah. Yeah, you need all that. There's people organizing to get food out on either side of it. Are you getting nostalgic sitting in a restaurant hearing like the clanking and clacking and whatnot? When we got to a little tour last night through the restaurant,

when we walked down the line, I said, just automatically went behind some people and just said behind you, you know, at that moment, I felt a little nostalgia. You did? Yeah. One day I was, I think I might've talked about this, but one day I was with Yanni

and we were pulling out of a coffee shop and a guy drives by pulling a drift boat like a youngster pulling a drift boat and it was clearly like a guide headed out in the morning and yeah he's like oh here he is you know heading out for a day with a client and i asked yanni i said does that make you nostalgic for your guiding days thinking that it did he's like no taking some other asshole out for flowing the same stretch of river you floated for the last 30 days i must have been feeling a little bitter that morning so uh the guide the the the human egret talk about i want you to cover the regulatory structure and i want

you to talk about how he's also a commercial gigger and what that all means yeah i mean flounder is a pretty interesting topic i think too because there was a real problem with their populations a few years ago parks and wildlife went in and implemented a uh november moratorium on gigging during their main spawning run. And run, that implies movement. Yeah, they supposedly run from the shallow bay. And a flounder, I mean, if you're familiar with the... This is the southern flounder. The southern flounder.

If you're familiar with, I mean, the way it's structured, it's a very flat fish. It can, I've gigged them in probably three or four inches of water before. But so they're in really shallow marshy bays, maybe five or six feet deep at the most. And then they run out into the Gulf to spawn in really deep water.

So why are they vulnerable out spawning in deep water? Because they go in, as far as I know, really deep water. So why are they vulnerable out spawning in deep water? Because they go in, as far as I know, really deep water and they're hardly ever fished for in the actual bay. You'll hear about people catching them off of jetties and piers a little bit, especially ones that are a jetty that leads out into the bay. They'll have to run through there to get into the gulf. But they spawn supposedly in very deep water and they're just not really fished for out there. leads out into the bay. They'll have to run through there to get into the gulf, but they spawn supposedly in very deep water and they're just not really fished for out there.

You know, the vast majority of the fishing happens in the bay for them. But people hit them hard when they're moving that- Hit them hard in November during the run with rod and reel and also with gigging. When they're migrating out. Right, and they're just more active and they're in big numbers

and you can target them at passes. So like where there's water moving out into the Gulf. And so there was- Oh, I got you. So they become vulnerable that way. Right. So they closed down gigging and they took the, I'm sorry, the recreational limit down to two

for rod and reel for the month of November. And then there's a lower limit in the first two weeks of December as well but gigging opens back up for those two weeks we can only gig to flounder so captain David offers the offers look discounted trips during that two weeks and that's our, I was going to say, that's a really good time to go. That'll. Anyway. It's a horrible time, right? Yeah.

To go. It's a horrible time to go. It's windy. Yeah. It's windy and cold. And the flounder are really small. And he charges a lot more. Charges a ton. Yeah.

Charges that December rate. But it appears that the parks and wildlife uh moratorium has worked i mean at least that's from my perspective you know i'm not a biologist and i'm not a flounder guide but the the stocks seem to be up there seem to be a lot more flounder now uh so kind of a success story as far as that goes um and i think that the the gigging guides down there they do all right without having November you know out there and they can also go out and if they have their commercial licenses they can go and get flounder to sell it into the wholesale markets and they I believe the boat limit is 30

flounder a day and they can also get sheep's head and black drum and so they go down there and and they fill boats with that and that you know we we buy some of that not necessarily from captain david but we buy some gigs flounder here and there but it goes into fish markets and along the coast uh what do you do with the how do you like to fix the ones you get flounder uh my favorite way is to stuff them scale them captain david showed me the best trick but and this this is an amazing trick for scaling any fish is he uses what's called a curry comb are you familiar oh i was told i was told to ask you about this and had it in my notes yeah i had it in my head yeah he uses a curry comb which is because miles nolte

was telling me to ask you about this yeah but i said a curry comb he's like not just any curry comb huh well i'm not familiar with the varieties but well explain to me what it is because i don't know i think you use a brush of horse yeah it's got those jaggedy it's got those jaggedy it looks like a souped up hacksaw blade kind of bent four of them stacked on top of each other in a half circle kind of concentric circles with the handle on it um and that that'll take the scales off of a fish with so much speed it's incredible and any any fish that you're scaled like a blue guy yeah absolutely that's the one spiral steel horse curry yeah yeah Miles Nolte, much as I love him, that's just a regular Joe Blow curry comb. He was convinced. He thought I had a

souped up, he thought he had a souped up curry comb. Yeah, like an artisanally made handcrafted. He likes to scale fish with that. Absolutely. It's incredible. It'd probably be a little bit too big to just run that on a panfish. No, you could do it. No, I've done it. Absolutely. Order us up a couple of those. i will use your company card you got to use

one of those gloves those cheap like fish cleaning gloves you know that are kind of like cut gloves i use them just for gripping fish because they you know any slimy fish or just being able to grip but if you're using the curry comb it's really nice to have that glove in case you miss because i mean it's not going to hurt you but it it will scratch your hand up. So he likes to scale a southern flounder. Well, you asked me how I like them, and I like to stuff them. But when you scale them, they've got like little mini, mini scales. True, true. Densely packed.

Yeah. But you don't, I mean, you've got to take those off. Oh, yeah. No, I always skin them. Oh. No, no. We used to catch them just fishing the Gulf Coast of Florida. We would catch them kind of in a mixed bag with other stuff,

just casting out in the troughs between the beach and the first sandbar. You just lay bait out there. We'd catch, you know, now and then you'd catch southern flounder. And I never did anything but skin them. You cut them off in quarters. Oh, no, just talk about how you do it. Just scale the fish. I mean, I like to, I just, I got it.

I like to leave the heads on. Okay. Because when you cut the head off, you expose the tops of the filets to I think too much dry heat. And so I just prefer to leave the head on. You pull the gills out? Yeah, gill and gut.

That's the easiest fish in the world to gut. They have just tiny uh intestinal cavities it's for the for how big that fish is it's remarkable how small their digestive system is so you just go in there gut them gill them scale them and then you just run your knife along the um the lateral line yeah which is on the top the the kind of the apex the dark side of the dark side of the dark side of the fish and then come in with a fillet knife and just run along the rib bones that run this is a this is a exercise in like manual writing along the rib bones that run you know parallel to the cutting surface almost almost

to the fins on either side and just open up a big pocket in it yeah i got i leave the bones in i know some people will try to we'll pull the bones out make it kind of boneless and then just stuff that with uh usually crab blue crab and then lay it back on there lay the lay the so sorry the you're stuffing between ribs and top fillet or ribs exactly okay exactly i got an idea for the listeners for the listeners which put your hands together huh or they could buy my book and look at the pictures let's do that plug your book man yeah it's the everything I just described I just realized I got I got pretty pictures already written it out with captions yeah plug your book yeah a

field that came out in 2012 came out a long time ago uh and uh yeah a field a chef's guide to uh preparing and cooking wild game and fish and so flounder is covered along with blue crab and you show how to stuff flounder yeah and and uh to be clear captain david is mentioned by name in that book as well oh okay so there you go um but yeah and there's pictures of him but what about looking like are you stuffing the belly side too why no no just the top side and then you just leave it and then you uh oil a pan so it doesn't stick to the pan oil the fish season it and uh stuff it with you know just tons of butter uh i like to put fresh herbs in there like thyme

oregano shitload of crab meat bay all the crab meat you can afford or catch. And then just roast it in a hot oven. It's incredible. Or fillet it and you get the four fillets off of it. And I mean, fry it. I'm sorry. But if you ask me what the pinnacle for most fish, like the best recipe is going to be fried.

I'm sorry. It doesn't get apologize to me man yeah i love fried fish with a passion and it's like i'm hardly ever inspired to be like i'm not gonna fry that dude i'm so like one of the things that just like pains me about the world is this sort of idea that that there's something sort of wrong or that needs to be apologized about in certain circles about frying fish. I agree.

Tell us about your breading. I think that varies a lot in circles. It's going to depend on the fish. Are we moving on to frying? Oh, well, just frying. Can I ask one last quick follow-up? Do you think it would work to take your strategy?

Have you handled halibut much? I'm sure you have to your restaurant, man. Yes, I have. It's been years. Could you take a 10-pound halibut, say, and do some big, super dramatic version? Or would you never get that thing to roast through? Absolutely, you can. In fact, it's been done.

There's a really beautiful cookbook by francis malman uh called malman on fire and he stuffs a a halibut probably about a 10 pound halibut with i believe it's peppers and onions olive oil cuts the same way you're talking about absolutely and then wires it shut and then roast it over a fire so i mean yeah like phenomenal preparation you could you could completely do that and you should but on your stuff flounder you're probably going to end up eating the scaled skin yeah right we're on that it's a little sticky but i mean i like that yeah it's a good way of describing it yeah yeah it's sticky it's like a sushi wrapper yeah that seaweed one imagine it was a little bit thicker yeah it doesn't

really get crispy um but i like to leave it on as an insulation and i like the way it tastes and i i like you know i like chicken feet and things like that a lot so like that sticky texture is is fine for me you like like sticky buns? Yes. That's different. Go ahead, Yanni. A little bit different. But on 10-pound halibut, you probably wouldn't be chewing through that skin,

I'm guessing. I'm not sure. You know what you can do with that skin? And I've done it. I stole this from Jack Pepin. Jacques Pepin. Because he does it with some other fish. But Jack Pepin. Jacques Pepin. Because he does it with some other fish. But Jack Pepin, he makes little crispies.

So you take the halibut skin and just cut it. You sort of do it with flounder skin. Basically, you're making... What's the word I'm looking for, man? Chicharrones. No, there's like a snack product that I'm trying to think of. The dimensions. No, I'm trying to think of. The dimensions. No, I'm trying to think of the dimension of the cut. Quarter inch wide strips, two, three inches long.

What is that snack product called? Yeah, you can season them and fry them and put them on salads. There's a guijon? There's a little strip of fried fish? No, no. It's a cut. It's a French name of a cut? There's like a thingon. There's a little strip of fried fish. No, no. It's a cut. It's a French name of a cut. There's a thing that comes in a container.

It comes in a container like a... It's not like shoestring fries. No. It doesn't matter. But it's a nice thing to do with skin. Like, you know, if you... Let's say you broil a salmon filet on the skin. And a lot of people, when they go to serve themselves they just sort of remove their piece of fish and leave the skin and so when it's all done you got

a piece of foil or whatever with the whole damn skin from a broiled fish stuck to it you can take that off put it on your cutting board, and just cut it into quarter-inch strips. And then cut those down to two, three inches or whatever. And just throw them in hot oil. Season them, salt them, and just throw them in hot oil. And they curl up and turn into a little chip. That's a pretty good little chip. I'm sure you know what I'm talking about. I mean, like on a pig, it would be a chicharron or a crackling.

Yeah, exactly. But you don't understand. You don't understand everything I'm saying except this. There's a snack product that is the dimensions of what I'm talking about. Nothing to do with the taste or appearance. It doesn't matter. Yeah, I don't know if it is actually sold as like a salad garnish or if it's just sold as like a potato chippy kind of a thing.

Yeah, you know what else it would be like? It's exactly that long. It's got like a little wave to it. I can't even tell you what the hell it's made out of doesn't matter potato or corn i described it so clearly yeah we get it i got it hey folks exciting news for those who live or hunt in canada and boy my goodness do we hear from the canadians whenever we do a raffle or sweepstakes and our raffle and sweepstakes law makes it that they can't join our northern brothers get irritated. Well, if you're sick of, you know, sucking high and titty there, OnX is now in Canada. The great features that you love in OnX are available for your hunts this season. The Hunt app is a fully functioning GPS

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slash meet OnXMaps.com slash meet welcome to the OnX club y'all ok ask your stuff about frying. A master chef's perspective on breading. Breading. Breading.

I mean, it's really going to depend on the fish, like catfish, a lot of freshwater fish, like crappie, white bass, and specifically catfish. I do a mustard batter where i'll take a batter well i mean not a batter well it's it's mustard and buttermilk dip it in that and then dredge that in cornmeal so technically i guess it would be a dredge okay so hold me back up now here i am i got a dead catfish laying here yeah let's just get serious there's a dead catfish yeah flopping around still not even dead oh come on we can't even skip to i can't skip ahead to

the i got a catfish filet there we go okay do you trim them nice uh i will if it's big i'll take a fat and blood line out of it okay but if it's small i won't and i love the bellies like uh if catfish is bigger than two or three pounds i I do what I call like a three fillet method where I pull off the fillets off the sides and I flip it over and I take basically everything from the throat to the anus, skin that on both sides because it's got that crazy silver on the top side.

And then you'll get two really nice big chunks off of that that I think have the best texture on them. And if you get a flathead, absolutely. Oh, and it's like chicken tenders. It's like chicken tenders had sex with fish. Flathead belly is amazing. I think Parker described it as white gold. Sorry, white gold.

Not like chicken tenders had sex with fish, it's white gold. Well, either way, you should should attempt it and so catfish yet so mustard buttermilk hot sauce if you want and then straight into fine cornmeal from there and slow down because you're making a little like a you're combining your hot sauce yeah although it's leads me like I'm a child okay the hot sauce and about equal, buttermilk and yellow mustard. Okay. In a bag, in a bowl, whatever.

And you take your fillets. You're talking prepared mustard, not powder. Correct. Yeah. Yeah. And I like catfish too. I cut into strips. I don't like to do whole fillets.

I like a lot of crispy, like a thin layer of crispy breading to them. But I don't prefer to do whole fillets. I like a lot of crispy, like a thin layer of crispy breading to them, but I don't prefer to do whole fillets. Cut that into strips, go into the buttermilk mustard, potentially hot sauce mixture. What's your hot sauce you like? The one that we make here. Also the mustard we make here, but I don't know. You could use anything you want. I think, what is it, Crystal? That Louisiana, that hot sauce out of Louisiana is really good. What do you think about Frank's? Yeah, fine.

Frank's. It's good on chicken wings. But I'm saying, let's say a guy was just down at the local rural grocery store. Franks and French's all the way. Okay. Yeah, Franks and French's. I'm trying to cover for that feller. Yeah, and he's like, oh, shit, they don't have buttermilk here.

Just use some milk, man. Just use some milk to thin it out. You're fine. Okay. So he got some Franks, some French's, his kid's milk. Yeah. Equal parts. Yeah.

Okay. some french's his kids milk yeah equal parts yeah uh season your fish with a little bit of salt toss them into the mustard buttermilk mix and then you it's really imperative that you have fine cornmeal because because coarse cornmeal is not going to stick very well it's going to come off and that's that's let me tell you the real problem man let me tell you the real problem with coarse cornmeal that turns black and is bitter. Yes. Yes. Yeah, it's no good.

And it's crunchy. And why is it being like you get little pieces in your mouth? Yeah. It's good for, I guess, some cornbreads and things like that where you want that texture and you're adding a lot of moisture and fat into it. But no, no good for frying. But you know what also works really well is masa. Like masa arena, which is dried

masa that is then turned into a flour. And it is by nature very, very fine. And it's a cornmeal product that's been nixtamalized. So it has a slightly different flavor, but it's very good. And sometimes we'll do a 50-50 mix of fine cornmeal and masa. But if you're in a pinch and you're in a place that sells masa arena and you can't find fine cornmeal and masa but if you're in a pinch and you're in a place that sells masa arena and you can't find fine cornmeal get that you familiar with that brand red mill yeah bob's red mill yeah they sell a fine corn yeah that's what i was to say if you're in your grocery store and you see like a little they'll kind of always keep it all together but he's that company's like the company that has all the crazy flour yeah yeah another one i like to

use i use for the uh squid is uh rice flour rice flour is a nice breading okay yeah super light and airy it complements that squid nicely but i still feel like even with them it's like they always have the coarse and the medium but finding that fine ground it's hard i don't know what the deal is i have to i ask and just have them like order in six bags and buy it when i see it i buy a bunch yeah and there's actually there's a there's a grocery store here in town that has very fine cornmeal in bulk and so i go there i used to buy it in bulk and i buy big bags of it and then if i can't find it like that then i would check around and see who carried that Bob's Red Mill. Yeah. Because he's got medium and fine.

Yeah. But regular run-of-the-mill cornmeal is not great for frying fish. Right. So there we are. We got our little mustard hot sauce buttermilk. What about this tone I got off you about the batter? Is there something wrong with the batter? That's not a big batter guy, man. All battery.

And then, like, it holds so much oil. And then the batter comes off and there you are just like a naked hunk of fish because the batter fell off sure i mean just makes me feel like i'm at long john silvers but it can't be long john silvers you get through all that batter and realize there's not a fish in there they just they like batter batter they like get a drive in a batter and batter that and then fry that and you open it up and it looks like like a fried pancake yeah it's just yeah i i like it sometimes i think i kind of really like fluffy white fish you know like with the big old greasy i think it has to be done right now i mean about it when you make a batter it has to be a little

thinner than you then you think it needs to be it needs to When you make a batter, it has to be a little thinner than you think it needs to be. It needs to be ice cold before it goes into the fryer. The batter has to be super cold, and the fryer has to be super hot. What's hot in your mind? I would say pushing 375. Okay. Like really hot. And cut your piece of fish.

You think that's really hot? That's my go-to temp. Yeah, that's hot. For fish? Yeah. I mean, yeah, that's my that's my go-to temp yeah that's hot for fish yeah i mean yeah because man they make you they're they're nice like perch fillets everything like that 375 yeah it's a small i mean it's a smaller yeah but you get like it's like wow yeah crispy you open it up it's still

like nice on the inside yeah yeah you're talking like a minute in the fryer you can't go you can't go like wander off and do something else i I mean, you're standing there staring at it. Sure. Yeah. But I think, yeah, a good batter. And I mean, we make ours here with just, I mean, beer. Choose a good flavorful beer, flour, and baking powder. And the baking powder makes it expand. And it helps with the crunch a lot on it too. You got to fry it hot and you got to fry it long enough.

And then it will, you'll get it. I mean, you'll get a good textural experience out of it if it's done just right but that said i totally prefer my corn meal uh sometimes i will bread fish with flour egg wash and bread crumbs yeah and do it that way especially if i'm going to serve them sauced like put a sauce on top of the fish, like when I serve it. Like one of my favorite dishes is a very cruzano sauce. So like a tomato, olive, pepper, some chilies, garlic, cilantro, parsley sauce. And I love to do fried fish that's been breaded in breadcrumbs. And then it's got that sauce on top of it. It holds up really well

when you can use panko or dried bread or whatever you want but uh there's there's sometimes where i will like what we call standard breading procedure of fish or flour egg and then and breadcrumbs that's good too well or flour egg then cornmeal sure because if we're doing like catfish sandwiches like where it's a big flay because see when you cut it like if i had to do it one way i'd always cut them up small pieces and then cut at that angle on a bias is that what i'm trying to say to create edges right so they crisp up nice but when you're doing a whole piece, you have less surface area. And so you feel like you're not getting the amount of breading you deserve because the surface area is bigger.

So then we're doing like big chunks of catfish to make a sandwich. Then season the filet, egg, sorry, flour. And then you got something for the egg to stick to. Then the cornmeal and then fry. And then you get a hearty crisp to help because it's such a big piece. Right. Like a shell. Yeah, that's a good way of putting it.

Yeah. And then you put some pickles and shit on that sandwich. Mayonnaise. Yeah. Well, we make a little tartar. Yeah. Yeah. Basically like chopped up pickles.

Yeah. Make it like a tartar. But then put more pickles on it and tomatoes on it and some Franks. I'm into fish sandwiches. I love fish sandwiches a lot. So yeah, yeah, you got my attention. Fried catfish sandwich. When you're doing your cornmeal to fry fish, do you like to put some paprika and stuff in there to make it look nice?

I usually don't. If I eat anything, I'll put black pepper in there. I do like a good amount of black pepper in there. Do you season the filet or season the mix? That's a great question. Season with anything that you're gonna fry. This is a pet peeve of mine. Is you've seasoned the thing you're going to fry.

You don't season the powder that you're going to then dust onto it and get some approximation of seasoning on it. Like, well, I mean, how much, if you put a handful of flour into, or a handful of salt in a couple, into a couple of cups of flour, how much salt is going onto the flat?

You have no idea. Why don't you just season the damn thing? You're going to fry. Like the way you like it. Yeah. Just, just put the salt on there and then put the flour on it and you've, then you're done. That's it. And that's a good way to make me angry here.

Another fella pointed out too, is too, if you do that method where you have your breading seasoned, is that the seasoning is bigger pieces than the flour, right? And so when it's just sitting in a bowl or a bag, it's naturally like the bigger stuff, heavier stuff is kind of going to the bottom. So your earlier fillets are getting less seasoning. And then as you get through your breading, the shit's getting stronger and stronger

and saltier and saltier. Who was telling us that? Parker? Parker. It's gravity. Parker Hall. You want to talk about killing some pigs?

Is that a question? And catfish. And catfish. But I want to know, do you ever just... Because the answer is yes. Do you ever just go fish, like seasoned, and then cornmeal into the fryer? Like that simple?

No. Never? No. I have trouble making the cornmeal stick appropriately. I've seen that. I just think having that little light coating of mustard and the mustard brings acidity and that's just nice. When it was fried food, you want something to cut that.

And you're just, you're starting with a little thin layer of acidity and it just gives the filet itself a lot more like a spectrum of flavor. I'm having Saturday night fish fry tomorrow night when I'm home. I can tell you. I thought I had some fish to fry. I got a lot of fish. You can come over to my house, man.

We just brought a bunch back from Michigan. Oh, yeah. My wife just brought some back from North Carolina. I got bluegills, channels. What else do I got? And flats. Old flats, but fresh channels and bluegills uh while we're on oh and then one huge freaking small mouth oh that's a good fish to eat yeah yeah no not like his trash he calls in the large mouth i don't know they're pretty it's a better

listen a small mouth is a legit eating fish. See, I'd never really eaten them until I was in Canada, and we were on Lake Huron and started catching these big smallmouth and out of state, non-resident. I could keep, I think, two a day. And all I was catching was that and pike, and I was blown away by how good a smallmouth was. Pike, too.

I mean, they're a pain in the ass to clean, but they're really good. So good. But also, I mean, that's cold water. I mean, you can talk about the trashy largemouth, but I think it's just. I'm just joking about largemouth. I've caught largemouth in Michigan that were fantastic. Yeah, we used to eat them. I mean, it was just like you didn't throw them back.

But I feel there's a weed we used to have in the lake where i grew up on where we had a lot of large mouse off we had three species of weed seaweed uh even though it's not the sea lake weed okay milfoil which is an invasive a weed that i don't know the name of and my brother and i who knows the name of every damn thing in the world he didn't even know the name of it and we made a note to find the name of it we still haven't gotten around to it and the third weed was skunk weed and skunk weed would be like almost grows like a carpet like a grass once you get out too deep for the other weeds there's not enough enough sunlight. Then there's a skunk weed that would grow down there. And when you ate those largemouths, and skunkweed smells like a skunk.

Unmistakable. And when you eat largemouths, there's some part of me, like I can taste, when I eat largemouths, I get an aftertaste of skunkweed. Even if it hasn't lived around skunkweed yeah it's like a member I don't know if it's like psychosomatic

now but a smallmouth it might as well be a walleye yeah I'd agree with that yeah smallmouths good it's also just titillating to talk about eating largemouth bass in Texas because it's so, people get so upset about it. You use that word titillating often? No. Well, I mean, I think that using the word titillating to describe eating largemouth bass is like exponentially upsetting to people that don't like to eat largemouth bass.

Yeah, because they don't like eating largemouth bass. And they don't like to hear that word. And they don't like that word. Yeah, they don't think anybody should use that word. It's not the word. It's not a word to eat largemouth bass. Yeah, because they don't like eating largemouth bass. And they don't like to hear that word. And they don't like that word. Yeah, they don't think anybody should use that word. It's not a word to throw around. Yeah. Like when I'm watching Bassmasters, no one says titillating. No, no, no.

The commentators, never. I think I might just publish a recipe like titillating fried bass. What else on fish? Have we covered everything we want to cover on fish before we get on the frying so i'm really interested uh how how do you how would you treat a shrimp a shrimp that's gonna make it go to the fryer oh a fryer fried shrimp um that yeah um as far as the breading process you can i mean batter not really i don't prefer a batter i think uh bread crumb like flour egg bread crumb is probably my favorite you um butterfly egg bread crumb i'm shrimp yeah um you can also do the uh mustardmilk, not to be just like a two trick pony, but that's also very good on shrimp. I like to butterfly them.

I think that extra surface area is really good. Fry them super hot. And man, it looks like you double your yield when you do that to some shrimp. Yeah, I love fried shrimp. My daughter also is a big fried shrimp fan. Do you look down on people who make coconut shrimp? No, I've had it before.

It's fine. Dude, I love that stuff, man. It's good. I mean, yeah, I love coconut, though. Yeah. It's kind of cheesy. It is a little. It's not cheesy like cheese in it.

It's pretty like 1980s Applebee's style. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I don't put cheese in my ice cream. 1980s. Right. Applebee's style. Yeah, yeah. I love it, man. I worked on a place called the Idler Riverboat. You ever go there? South Haven, Michigan? I was in South Haven. I was spitting distance from South Haven last week.

Yeah. I bet that thing's still floating. It's a really cool old barge. Vincent Price used to own it. It was in the 1904 World's Trade Fair. Vincent Price? Yeah. Do you know what's a weird story, man?

There's this guy that was up in Southeast Alaska and looted a bunch of totem poles. Long time ago. People would go up in the 20s and stuff and loot totem poles. I remember they really tried to track down one of these totem poles. They realized it was just outright stolen. And it wound up being in the possession of Vincent Price. Of course. Funny you mention him.

But go on. I think we felt like we had a fairly sophisticated menu for South Haven, Michigan at the time. And this was probably like 94-ish. And that coconut shrimp, man, it was like a top seller it wasn't an appetizer it was like it was an entree that we had there at the time and we sold the shit out of it people loved it so you look down on it i can tell no not i mean i'm not gonna order it i'm gonna take just a regular you know standard breaded shrimp over that probably but i mean a little coconut shrimp what's that some kind of sweet sour hot little orange marmalade sauce some kind of like chunky jelly uh yeah i get it i would i would eat it absolutely i'd eat

it no i don't look down on it i got one more fry question for you. Are you like a peanut oil man? Well, okay. It kind of depends on where I'm at now for years here, we fried everything in pure beef fat. And I am, I'm a big fan of, if not all beef fat in the fryer, at least some for flavor and texture. It's like, I can't really describe what what texture that imparts even frying crappies absolutely frying donuts we would do them in beef fat now once that cools you get a little bit of that you know that wax just similar to like what you get off of deer fat how are you buying that volume of beef fat uh we get it from our beef producer there's no other place for them to sell it who

renders it you render it we render it it smells amazing no it doesn't sorry so you're buying you're buying fat rendering it out and then making rendering out gallons of beef fat yeah we still yeah we still do and pork fat but i mean pork fat beef fat and then some kind of high temperature oil. Any of those works. Like if I'm... How hot can you get beef fat? Not that hot. Not, I mean, 375 is really pushing it. It'll darken it.

Yeah. Yeah. So peanut oil, I think, is great for frying. It's expensive, man. It is expensive. And then for frying here these days, we use a non-gmo canola oil which works pretty well and you like that yeah less expensive than peanut uh well we have to consider peanut allergies so you know even if it's just a one person in thousand it can it can

kill them dead you know many restaurants won't won't use peanut oil oh that's interesting just the the the tenacity of that allergy you know what's the when you're using beef fat like if someone fills up their deep fryer with beef fat deep i'm sorry they fill their deep fryer with beef fat and they cook some fish for their buddies and then they put it on a shelf somewhere yeah it's kind of it's if you've fried a lot of fish it's cached it's volatile yeah it's just so it's not like peanut oil where you can strain it and then store it away and cook some more fish next week definitely one of the downsides to that i mean you can strain it and use it a little bit but a lot of the time for frying fish specifically, I will use a mix of beef fat

and at home, if I'm frying it, beef fat and peanut oil. Oh, okay. Which I like a lot. And then how hot can you get the beef fat? Pretty much like 375, because the peanut oil really helps bring that smoke point up on the beef fat. So it works real well.

Ready for a major gear change? Yeah. How, we were talking last night when we were eating in this restaurant. First off, tell people what we ate last night in this restaurant. Let's see, we had a, it's beginning of summer. So we were, we started off with some tomatoes.

We had a tomato salad with avocado, with a venison machicado, which is a dried venison. We have to access venison shanks that have been shredded and then dried or salted and dried. And some chilies, mint, and cilantro and lime. We had the cork cheese with the grilled mushrooms and bread and a little ginger marmalade. And we had the bread, too, the mesquite sourdough, which is made with ground mesquite flour, sourdough, and pecans, and served with whipped lard, domestic pork fat with orange zest in it. I'm trying to remember now. Just one more thing. Wasn't there some rhubarb in something? I'm trying to remember now. There's one more. One more thing. Wasn't there some rhubarb

in something? I'm sure. I don't remember that. In the whipped lard. Yeah, there was some rhubarb in the whipped lard. Right. Oh, that was with the bread. Yeah. I think you just covered all the apps though. Oh, the Parisa. We had the raw axis with the fresh chilies, lime, onion, and cheddar. It's ground and then kind of mixed up and served with the butter crackers. And that's a real Central Texas dish right there. It's a raw meat. Usually it's beef, but I love it with venison. Your menu has my favorite sentence of all time on the menu,

where it says, everything is from around here. Yeah. Talk about that. Well, our sourcing here is pretty strict. And I think these days you hear a lot about local foods and sustainable and this and that. And we have, since we've been in business which was 13 years sourced entirely I mean we could say locally but I'll say within the boundaries of Texas much of it coming from much much closer than that so all of our even down your damn olives even the olives olives olive oil all the dairy uh

the butter um texas wine all texas wine list um and all the texas wines are made with texas grapes which is an issue here there's a lot of wineries here that use grapes from somewhere else which i don't consider to be a texas wine um our beers are all made here. All the meat, and we're very selective about where we get meat, whether it's domestic or wild. And then seafood comes from the Gulf or some freshwater when we have access to the, you know, the very rare wholesale catfish trot liners. You know're they don't have websites you know it's it's really hard to get a hold of wild caught freshwater fish anymore there's a few fisheries i think up north and you know where you can still get crappie and walleye and yellow perch and it's

not like that out of canada yeah yeah um so freshwater fish is is tricky but you know shrimp and blue crab and and goldfish is is widely available and, you know, shrimp and blue crab and goldfish is widely available. And then all of our fruits and vegetables are whatever's in season or whatever we've been able to preserve. And so like we won't have lemons or onions certain times of the year and we just deal with it. But it's fun. It's a really fun way to write a menu and really fun way to serve food. It just makes it simple. And we talked about this before, but it's confusing to people when you say that you serve wild game, because people know that for the most part,

you can't sell wild game, but Texas has so many feral, has so many non-natives. Yeah. So talk about like the path of how a deer would wind up here in this restaurant, an axis deer or a meal guy or whatever. Yeah. And I think, you know i mean to speak a little more

to that is is that these are invasives and i think that these are great things to eat uh as whenever you eat a feral hog or an axis you're not you're not contributing at all to anything that had to be fenced in or have a vet bill or anything like that or be fed corn or anything like that it's just you are you're just using something that's that's detrimental to our environment our you know our region right here and so the way we get the the hogs i'll start with those is they have to be trapped live and then they're brought into our processor live an inspector sees them, sees that they're healthy, they're killed. He does another inspection, liver, kidney, inside of the rib cage, the membrane there. He looks for spotting, things like that. And at that point, they get a blue stamp and they're state inspected.

And so at that point, they are just a swine carcass and we can buy that and then sell it and so we get uh three to four hundred hogs equivalent of about three to four hundred hogs a year between the two restaurants let me stop you on adamant yeah do you remember the name of the episode we did where we hung out with the texas hog trapper he does commercial hog trapping the podcast or the uh no the tv show lone star pork this is the title it's on netflix uh let me check it is yeah just to see that process of trapping hogs yeah we ate all of ours but he sells them too we're going so the hog that's how that's a hog's path to the restaurant the hogs and you buy it when you buy it uh give me a ballpark like on the carcass if someone wants to buy wild pig meat what's the what's the value of that stuff it's expensive i

mean you're basically paying the same rate that we pay for heritage hogs like really well raised okay so it's not bargain basement shit i wish it was i really do and it's ironic that it's not that somebody goes up in a helicopter, kills 60 and lets them lay in a field. And then we're paying a premium price for the ones that have entered the food system. But I get it. I mean, there's people who got,

you know, they got gas money to get out there and check the traps and do all that. So then there's a pretty inefficient system out there to get these hogs out. But I mean, one of my goals is to, like, come up with a more vertically integrated system where we can, you know, trap pigs, process pigs, and turn them into food that's more readily available to people. And you can feed a lot of people with the 3 million hogs that we have here in Texas. Especially since we're supposed to kill 2 million of them every year to keep their population static, which we're not doing.

And so I think there's a lot of conversations that can happen about that. The deer, that's really cool in that there was a pioneering company called Broken Arrow Ranch, and they started years ago by taking an inspector with them and they had two shooters shooting suppressed rifles i believe now they do most of their shooting at night and they have a refrigerated trailer with a guy that follows them and they go out into the field and shoot these animals. Inspector's right there. They do this crazy electro stimulation

where they basically hook them up to a car battery. I got one of those machines, man. Yeah. I've never opened it. Bleeds them out really quick. And then the inspector's there for the whole processing. And then they chill it down. They have X amount of time to get it back

to their big processing hub outside of Kerrville, which is west of here. And then it's sold all over the country from there and there's another business now and they shoot neil guy they shoot neil guy they shoot axis there's also a syca fallow any of the any of the invasives any of the exotic species no white tail to be clear i mean sometimes somebody will come in here and be like you can't serve ven venison. That's illegal. And I'm like, it's not a whitetail. And it's perfectly legal. Trust me. I'm like, I haven't been flying under the radar for 13 years on this one.

You know, I'm sure Game Ward would love to nail my ass if I was selling whitetail. But I am not, sir. So it is all exotics and invasives, which is great, I think. You know, I think it like you what you're also getting is a really natural protein i mean these animals are out there living in on these big properties and in the case of axis and nil guy these are mostly free ranging these are not sequestered beneath or behind a high fence even a huge ranch most of these are because they're all over the place now and spreading um and and the Nilgai live a very natural life.

They don't eat corn out of feeders or anything like that. They're grazing just like they should. And it's a really good protein. And we're able to get quite a bit of it. They're big animals too. 800 pounds. Yeah, a big one. A really big bull.

They're monsters. I was eating some of that the other day. Some buddies of mine, I was over at First Light, and they had a little wild game deal. And one of those boys had just been down to Texas and had some nilgai meat. It's good, man. It's really good.

And even the big ones. You don't see a real drastic difference between a mature cow and a mature bull. It's good, man. It's really good. And even the big ones, it doesn't, you don't see a real drastic difference between a mature cow and a mature bull. No, that'd be the thing. I mean, they're like, you'd be just as happy to have that as elk. Yeah.

You know? No, I think it's, I mean, up there with elk, elk, axis and nilgai, but I think axis being is the best that I've had. I really like it. They're big body deer for this area. So I mean, they're way bigger than the hill country deer. And so you get a lot of meat off of them

and they tend to be pretty fat and they're just so just naturally tender and delicious. Very mild. They're also really good for restaurant applications in that your general customer is not going to be put off by the flavor of an axis. It's very approachable.

Do you, have you had Sika deer? Yeah. Or Sika? Yeah, yeah. You like those? Yeah, they're good. I think they're pretty good, man.

Yeah, I mean, Fallow, Pear David's deer. Don't know what that is. Yeah, it looks like a big goofy white tail, like a monster uh we get all kinds you know our guy in fredericksburg will just call us and be like hey i've got this carcass hanging and sometimes even elk you know they'll be an overpopulation

of elk in an area and they'll go out there and trap a few and and uh bring them in and so we're able to serve elk and elk we a native here at one time. Yeah, we just had a big conversation about, it'll be on this, you can listen to that episode with the Texas Parks and Wildlife Director, Carter Smith. We talk about the controversy around how Texas manages and handles elk, which is legitimate, in my mind, controversial.

Yeah, I don't know much about it. You should listen to the episode. Yeah. Here's one for you. We talked about this. What is Texas cuisine? Yeah, I mean, that's a good one. And I think you'll get different answers from different people, of course.

I think that we cook with all Texas ingredients. And I mean, most other cuisines in the world have been defined by their ingredients. So, like, if you're going to... Give me an example. Well, in southern France, like, you're going to eat duck. You're going to cook with duck fat or walnut oil. You're going to have some pigs. You're going to have some freshwater fish.

You're going to eat beans onions herbs things like that so i mean the cuisine is very defined by that and just to put that into contrast let's go to let's go to vietnam and there you're going to have a lot of fish a lot of rice a lot of herbs a lot of vegetables that grow in a hot climate and a lot of fermented and preserved things because of said hot climate. And so that really influences the cuisine there. It's spicy, it's pungent, it's very bright, it's very flavorful versus something in France, which is going to be a little more austere, but equally delicious.

But the place really is influenced by what's available there so in this country or you know in texas i think we went at it in reverse and you know for the past 100 years we've been able to get whatever we wanted so we could we cooked with whatever we wanted and so we lacked a super definitive cuisine and that our ingredients never forced us into anything uh it's like defining our cuisine here. And that's not to say that we don't have things like barbecue or, more importantly, the influences of immigrant cuisines here, which I think are the most important thing about what our food is.

So in Central Texas specifically, we're in Austin right now. And so that's almost kind of dead center in the mass of Texas. There's strong influences from German culture, Czech culture, because there's a lot, a lot of immigrants from Germany and Czechoslovakia came here in the 1800s. And then really Mexican food,

you know, Mexico being three and a half hours to our south, a huge influence. And also as far as the weather and what we can grow here, you know, the peppers, the tomatoes, the onions, things like that thrive here. So, and we used to be part of Mexico. I mean, it was, we were, I mean, until Texas independence, you know, in 1836, you know, we were part of Mexico. And then we became a state nine years later. And it's, that influence is very, very profound, which is why I was joking earlier that we're a Mexican and German restaurant. Yeah, yeah. You know, it kind of just vacillates between the two, but I think it's good to, you know,

give respect to both of those. And if you go south of here an hour and a half to San Antonio, and then it's, you really feel that influence a lot more. It's beautiful, it's in the architecture, it's in the food, it's in every aspect of the culture. But there's also German beer houses, or beer gardens down there,

and like men's choirs, which is a thing in German communities. Like you'll see these ancient buildings that men still get together and sing, and there's a bar. I could see Yanni doing something like that. I've done a lot of it. Yeah, it's amazing.

I mean, it's amazing to be there and then next door is a mariachi band. Yeah, yeah. That's what I think Texas is. I mean, and that's not to negate any of the other cultures that have come here. Also, you know, Vietnamese culture is really strong. There's, you know, just like with any metropolitan area,

you get people from all over the world. And I think that's really important to embrace that. And then what we do here is we just use the ingredients that we have and then take any idea from anywhere else. Because I think that's like, that's open source right there. We can use any idea that anybody ever had about food and just apply it to the ingredients we have because those are our resources i'm not i'm not at all trying to imply that we define texas food but

i i think that since we are for lack of a better term such a melting pot at this point that it's it's nice to just give in and say that's what texas now. You know, we've got some distinct dishes like chicken fried steak, which is basically a schnitzel. You know, I'm sure that's where that came from. Barbecue, things like that. Crawfish boils, you know, come from a little east of here. You know, that's Cajun, but it's a big thing here. Fried fish.

Game. I mean, cooking game, I think, is also a really key ingredient to that but you mentioned schnitzel reminded me of something i wanted to mention earlier and forgot to mention when we're talking about seasoning meat for you before you fry it yeah we're making turkey schnitzel um for bo jackson the athlete yeah who's a he likes to cook he's a very opinionated cook and I made him a piece of turkey schnitzel and he ate it that's what you like some more and he said that he would and I go to make some more and he goes but here's what I would like you to do. And one of the things he wanted me, he noted that I had salted his schnitzel after it was prepared.

And one of his three requests was that I salt it before. And he had some other things. What were the other things? I got to know now. Because number one was valid. That he felt that the oil was a little too hot oh that was one thing which we know from the last hour of talking that steve likes to run hot oil he thought though i can't i can't remember what the third one was oh you you gotta remember the third one this is pretty fascinating i really can't remember man

i can't remember what the third thing was but he had like several suggestions the two that turned turned the burner down slightly salt his first but it was like just unusual um to be cooking someone something i usually am watching and when i see something i don't like i just keep it in the back of my head unless it's someone I know very well. Right. Then I would say like, you know what y'all, you know, fella could try.

Yeah. I appreciate how forward he was. And how knowledgeable about schnitzel he was. I had no idea. Very opinionated cook. Yeah, that's cool. But knows how to cook. The next morning,

I missed dinner because I was out hunting still. But the next morning, he whipped us up some scrambled eggs, man. And scrambled eggs are one of those things where a lot of people can really butcher them. You end up with some dry, you know. And Bo made some nice, silky, you know, like proper moisture level, you know, eggs. Yeah. Did you know that I make um the best scrambled eggs

ever i didn't know that i didn't know that either yeah low and slow low and slow the best ever not for everyone yeah but the best style but the best ever yeah do you stir constantly or oh yeah yeah i learned it from the greatest scoffier yeah that's what i said french style yeah that's exactly like that it's almost like a lightly cooked egg custard you just keep it moving yep yeah um you gotta have a rubber spatula that conforms that easily conforms to the contours of one's pan yeah because you can't be having it and you you got to have a good pan. Yeah. I, my main egg pan, I hide from my family. I keep it with the Dutch.

Don't say it. I keep it in the, though they're not that ambitious. I keep it in the Dutch oven section of the cupboard. Right. Where no one, they just don't go, why would they ever need to go in that area? This not you know my wife hates to cook so she's never going to wander over to the cupboard that has like dutch oveny stuff in it so i keep it there because when she carelessly scavenges around for a pan she naturally goes over to where the pans are and then ruins those pans by cutting stuff in them and whatnot.

And then I keep my scrambled egg pan secret. Tell us about this scrambled egg pan. Teflon coated? You know Diamond? I've heard of it. The company Diamond? It's a good pan. Expensive.

That's why you got to hide it from people. Can't be having... What do you think a Scoffier used for a pan? I don't pan. Expensive. That's why you got to hide it from people. Can't be having... What do you think a Scoffier used? I don't know. For a pan. I don't know. Not that. And not a rubber spatula.

No. You know what? Here's the weird thing. You know the opera singer, Bernhardt? I think Sarah Bernhardt was her name. Oh. Turn of the century.

No. Turn of the century. No. Turn of the last century. She didn't believe in eating garlic. Brightman? No. No. Damn it, Yanni. One sec.

Yeah. Bernhardt was a French stage actress oh stage actress he had probably had an affair with her he was married but maybe he had an affair with her she wouldn't eat garlic people had like a garlic phobia and the scoffier was a proponent of eating garlic and he kept secret from her that he would pierce his take a big clove of garlic and put it on the end of a fork and stir her scrambled eggs using a garlic tipped fork as a spatula that's amazing and she would love his scrambled eggs and he would never tell her that he used a garlic clove to move it around the pan. Look at that. It's deceptive.

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the on x hunt team some of our favorites are first light schneee's Vortex Federal, and more. As a special offer, you can get a free three months to try OnX out if you visit onxmaps.com slash meet. onxmaps.com slash meet. Welcome to the OnX club, y'all. Yeah, what's your favorite animal protein and why uh it's either well i guess i have to name a favorite you don't have an opinion on this well i mean i've got a top two that i'm trying to determine right now i'm gonna have to say what are your two favorite animal proteins? I appreciate that.

Feral hog and axis. But everyone knows feral hogs no good. You can't eat the big ones. They're all dry, right? Yeah, I feel like you're baiting me. You can absolutely eat the big ones. One of the best ones I ever had was 300 pounder. The reason that people think you can't eat the big ones. One of the best ones I ever had was 300 pounder. The reason that people think you can't eat the big ones is because nobody tries them.

It's funny how that works. How when you just announce that if they get over 100 pounds or whatever this arbitrary number, this line in the sand that you've drawn with feral hog size. Once they get over that, then you don't try them and then you tell other people that they're no good to eat and that's rampant in all wild game yeah there could be multiple generations that haven't tried a hog over 100 pounds because somebody back there said right that ones are over 100 no good and so their sons and daughters didn't do it and then that information was passed on and i feel like that's something that we battle absolutely and people are brand and as people that are trying to like explain shit is that we're just battling like uh what do you call

that um misinformation shit i don't know yeah but bullshit that's like got like has inertia cultural inertia yeah been with us for generations yeah bias it's because people are inherently lazy yeah so if you tell them a thing that allows them to be lazy right we recently heard about a antelope guide he american pronghorn, okay? Antelope guide in Wyoming who guides about 100 antelope hunters a year. And their line to people is that it's not good. And I can't remember the number, but I think close to 100 of these clients food bank it. Don't use it themselves because the outfitter doesn't want to deal bank it. Don't use it themselves because the outfitter doesn't want to deal with it

and just tells them it's no good and they accept that it's no good. In fact, it's one of the finest things running around. I mean,

I think tons of stuff's good. Anything with a hoof on it is pretty damn good. It's like a good hooved animal that tastes like a hooved animal. It just means that

they don't have to take it home and pull it out of their freezer in a year and a half after it's been freezer burned and throw it away. Because I mean, I think that's what happens to a lot, a lot of game meat, a lot of fish too. That's why when guys, there's a guy who's actively trying to like establish the value of the wild game economy um uh and look at the resource like the resource of wild game

in canada and wild game in america and what it does to the food system and how valuable it is and i keep wanting to ask him if he's throwing in all of the all of the lazy sons of bitches who bring it home, don't take care of it, knowing they're eventually going to throw it away and then throw it away because it's now, quote, freezer burned. Right.

Right. Which is a little bit of a myth to you. Which is also a myth. But- Because you could say it, or instead of calling it freezer burnt, we could say that one, it's not, or two, you didn't wrap it right.

Right. But not to steer it back to hogs, but— No, please. This is what we're here to talk about. When people are given open season on something, when they're told that killing them is a good thing, it's an altruistic act at this point here in Texas to kill a hog. And so they become, I don't know, they're like zombies and Nazis. Like you have all the go-ahead that you can possibly get to just shoot as many.

Like Ben says, man, you have permission to take the gloves off. Yeah. And at that point, it's fun to go out and kill them. And a big boar, the slightest justification not to physically lift it after you've killed it is, you know, it's great. Oh, I just did some good. Not like I went down to the homeless shelter and cooked for everybody today good, but, you know, I still did. I did my part today. That's another thing we laugh about is like, dudes who go prairie dog hunting,

they're like, well, man, you know, I do it for the ranchers. And like, if you went and asked a rancher, if you said, hey, man, I'm here. What do you need done today? Fix that fence. That's going to be low on the list of chores. Yeah.

See that barn? Can you clean that all out? Yeah. Shoot a ninth of a percent of the prairie dog population on my land. Or clean my house. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

It's a thing. And, I mean, it bugs me it's no end you know and i understand that all hogs can't be kept you can't retain all of them uh if you're going up and you're controlling them from a helicopter absolutely there's no way but um but if you're if you're going to tell me that you're not eating them because they don't taste good then i mean i i've got a lot of anecdotal evidence to the contrary well you've got a restaurant to the contrary yeah yeah I mean there's something you can do with them and we and it just so happens that we shoot I mean most I mean mostly boars like I'm trying to think of

the past few hogs that I've killed personally they've all been boars you know it's just not because you're selecting for boars no absolutely not i'll select a sow every time if but you those solo boars just tend to move around a lot more if we're hunting at night we see boars yeah if one pig comes into a field yep that's a boar um it's gonna be rare that a sow is gonna be on her own um but if if there's a group that comes in absolutely i'm picking out a sow and absolutely i'm picking out a pregnant sow because they have the most fat on them and they tend to be the best yeah you know that's the thing you hear people say a wet sow but man I got one one time and there's two problems with it two problems happened to me one was social in that I was with a friend of mine and she wasn't a big hunter hadn't been around it much and here i am gotten it

it's getting kind of dark out and i'm gutting it and i'm getting into it and i'm kind of like nothing to see here no right yeah oh look over that way yeah because that could be unsettling to someone absolutely the second problem is that this thing must have gotten into, like I was all excited because I knew this thing like a wet sow was good, right? This thing must have been eating something dead it found. It tasted. You know like sometimes you get black bears, and when we're hunting black bears on the coast,

you'll get black bears that they've been eating so much rotten salmon. I have no reference to that at all. But yeah, I imagine. It's like you'll eat it and it tastes like fish. Yeah, to the point where you smoked a ham that one time. Remember that ham? It is a good story. It's probably told a thousand times.

I'll tell it one more. I'm smoking a bear ham at my cabin in alaska and i go to and i we shot it like it was early june we shot and so salmon run salmon run hadn't happened yet right so not this year salmon we get a bear and uh and i go to my neighbor to borrow his smoker and smoke the bear ham in his smoker when I return the smoker I said man you need to clean the clean that smoker it's got so much like old salmon oil in it that it made my bear ham tastes like like rotten fish he said I've never smoked a fish net smoker there's never fish has never been in there and that was the first time I had

that experience of a bear that just tasted like fish right which a little bit has gradually turned me off of coastal black bears but anyhow this thing tastes like he had been eaten like I feel he had gotten into something right you know and it does it definitely happens and I'm not I'm not I would never say that all hogs are are delicious but that's the only one I had that ever had any problem oh I find it to be very rare and like I said you know we're we're going through hundreds a year and it's it's pretty it's it's very infrequent that you find one that you would classify as inedible i tell the story a lot about snaring a sow one time um and simultaneously while while that snare was running we we shot one of the same exact size they could have come out of

the same litter one was uh they're probably about 80 pounds uh both sows same fat content and everything and we butchered them both ate the shot one the next day took home the snared one and ate some of that the next day and the one out of the snare was inedible and just it had to be stress yeah i was going to suggest that yeah i mean it was definitely and I think that affects them a lot as well. When you're snaring them, are you buying snares or making your own out of garage cable? I won't snare them anymore after that. You don't snare them anymore? Yeah, it was, you know, I don't need to.

And I just, it wasn't for me. I just didn't like, she was just like so tired and worn out when I got up to her. And I was just like, you you know we did it because we needed a hog on the ground we were filming something and had to absolutely get a pig down and we were just hedging our bets with the snares but i i wouldn't do it again got you i met someone in hawaii who snares wild cattle i don't know if it's legal or not yeah yeah snare cattle yeah That's heavy cable. I made sausage out of a South Texas feral cow one time.

Custom order. This guy came in and he had, his doctor told him he couldn't eat any fat or salt. And he brought me these grocery bags full of frozen bits of like bone and meat from a feral cow in South Texas and asked if I could make sausage for him, but no fat and no salt. Which the answer would be no. Well, I was like, well, I mean, I mean, I was like, I'm going to just be up front and tell you the sausage isn't going to be good. This guy is just, he was so desperate for any, he's just like, I don't care. I just want sausage. I mean, I can't eat anything now. And was like all right i made it for him and it was it was awful what'd you cut into it we just put as many like spices and oh so you didn't

try to put some kind of like substitute for fat or binder in there no no no we just we just made a 100 ground ground meat sausage dry the flavor can be good but the texture and the dryness gets tough flavor flavor might have been good with a little salt yeah there was none of that in there either sausage, dry. The flavor can be good, but the texture and the dryness gets tough. Flavor might have been good with a little salt. Yeah. There was none of that in there either. So a wet sow, that's the right word, right?

Pregnant sow. I don't know why they call them wet. Is wet not nursing? Yeah, that's what I thought. Oh, no. Okay. Then what's the word for one? Because what I've heard is you want them before they start nursing.

I was calling it a wet sow. That my whole story up pregnant damn sow pregnant yeah yeah yeah like like if i see a sounder and there's a there's a a nursing sow that's obviously trailing some some little pigs then and there's a pregnant one also which there's typically going to be one or the other or both i mean they're they're there's only 23 days between when they give birth and when they go back into their estrous cycle and they're going to get bred i mean if there's a population of them around they're going to get bred almost immediately yeah i mean i feel i mean they're kind of bad i mean it's just like what a life i mean that's the i mean the break that you have with piglets is 23 days before you're bred again and then a little less than four months later,

you're giving birth again. And those first ones are just, you're weaning those first pigs off too. So, but I'll pick a pregnant one. I mean, it sounds, it's harsh, but they have better fat. And I just think they eat a lot better. So what's number two next to pigs? Axis, axis deer.

I think that, you know, again, from an invasive perspective, they're the best thing to eat around here. We've seen a real explosion in their populations in the last year or two here. And, I mean, to really put that into a perspective is the fact that I get invited to shoot Axis now. I've had a couple people be like, hey, there's just so many of them on our property. We come out and shoot one. Whereas if you go back five years, it'd be like, hey, do you want to come shoot an Axis?

It's $1,500. Okay. But also, I mean, that's how we got into this problem is the vast amount of private land that we have here in Texas. And then when people either stocked Axis on their land or the Axis showed up one day, it was very valuable commodity to the point where they didn't hunt them down into a manageable size population. And then one day,

it's like, oh, we should have been shooting a lot more of these and maybe not charging as much this obviously my perspective on it but now we're i mean we've gone from charging to inviting and if you drive west of here there's one highway that goes out to kind of the epicenter of where they were initially brought and you'll see two or three roadkill um just in a in a 30 40 mile stretch of highway they're there and you'll see big herds of them and they're they they can be in huge groups and uh they they out compete the white tails and they're starting to spread south and west and so i think it's definitely time to get in front of those too i mean they're never gonna never gonna have the impact of a hog uh but i i think that it's should i shoot a white tail or should i shoot an axis uh if i'm gonna be out there you know getting meat for

myself it's like i think an axis is the answer right now for your own personally yeah yeah um what do you like uh when it comes to butchering what do you like, uh, when it comes to butchering, what do you like working with the most? Um, hogs are fun because they're all, they're all different. I like that because, you know, I'm, I'm, my second book is almost complete, right? And, and we're, it's all about feral hogs and the approach that we've taken on it is how to, what do you do with the hog that you've got on the ground, you know, without over complicating it because you can't, there's no recipe for feral hog. It's like, well, how big is that pig? Is it eight pounds or is it 320? You know, there's a huge difference in that and applying the same concepts to every sized hog or the different fat contents that they can have is

going to lead to mishaps in the kitchen. And then you're going to be less apt to eat them in the future. So I think like clarifying how to eat pigs is really important. And I think it's also a lot of the fun of it. What I really enjoy is that when, you know, you get a pig, whether you've shot it or they, or, or they brought it in here, you don't know what it's going to look like. It could be 100 pounds and lean, or it could be 100 pounds and have two inches of pure acorn fat on it. And how that hog looks is going to inform the decisions you make in cutting. Are you going to cut chops off of it, or are you going to throw the whole thing in the grinder? Never get bacon off them.

You can't. Really? never get bacon off them you can't really uh you know this is a very common question in my uh in my the feral hog butchery classes that we do is that can you get bacon off and the answer is yes but i've probably seen less than 10 hogs ever that i'd say you could get legitimate slicing bacon off of to be clear like bacon that you could cut into a strip and fry and serve with eggs. If you want bacon flavored product, then even a smaller thin belly, if it's only an inch thick

or three quarters of an inch thick, you can take that off and still cure and smoke that. And then you can have bacon bits, absolutely, if it's got enough fat on it. But if you want like a legitimate slice, a strip of bacon to wrap around a dove breast or whatever, then it's gonna require a very, very large, very fat pig. And so it's typically gonna be a sow.

And you don't see sows in the, you know, live weight, probably 250, 300 plus, I think, before you start to get bacon that's gonna be to be worth it got it and so it's kind of rare to see a sow of that size although they are out there for sure you came in to hunt you were into food first and then hunting second so like food brought you into hunting yeah i always fished too you always fished growing up yeah and for me like hunting brought me into food right what uh what are your feelings about the intersection of those two things well i mean i'm i'm really excited about where it is right now because i think that it's like it's

it's come so far and that people think about food when they're hunting and fishing a lot more than they did even three years ago you can go back 10 years and it's i go i don't agree but go on well i i think well i'm coming from a perspective of being here in texas where i mean everything was was is treated in the same way feral hogs may be eaten doves may be eaten but they're only eaten one way. Venison backstraps are eaten, cooked one way. Just from looking at the divergence of recipes alone. Yeah, okay, I'll agree with that. Like the variety of preparations, but I think it's happening in a specific demographic. Certainly.

Yeah, the variety of preparations. But go on, i'll talk about my view on it some other day and you'll probably know a lot more about that specifically um i i feel like people are i feel like they're keeping more of their animals or at least experimenting a little bit more which is great um i i hope that you know the same thing applies to fish but you also hear a lot about you know people you know you talk to guides and they don't think that their clients eat their fish either they want to limit and then they don't eat the fish and i think that's you know it's real shame you know not to eat it's wasteful man eat fish as much as you can while it's fresh

eat it just just don't stop eating it until you have to freeze it is you know my policy so that's the intersection oh well um like do you think the two like do you think the food sort of like the the food community and the hunting community are in dialogue i do i think that there's i mean just think about you guys come in here let me ask you this okay you guys come into your restaurant who are lifelong hunters and they come in because they just want to get a better sense of what can be done with the stuff they hunt yeah is that like a client yes absolutely they're doing research yeah i mean we get people we i i used to do a lot of different classes you know domestic pork butchery uh seafood now i only do a feral hog butchery class just because it is the one it's in such a more extreme high demand than anything. Is that right? Really?

Absolutely. And we, we sell about two a month here at the restaurant. And then we, I travel around and do that same class over and over. How many students come into each class here at the restaurant? We have 10. So you're running 20 people through a month on average. Just here.

Really? Yeah. And we sell that out, no problem. Because that's, I mean, it's the elephant in the room. That's what everybody wants to know about. I got you. And it's just cutting. And is it mostly hunters or mostly people who would like to go hunting?

It's 80, wait, I'm sorry. Okay, is it mostly people who are like, man, I've been hunting pigs my whole life. I'm going to go find out how to better handle them? Yeah. Or is it mostly people who are thinking, I would like to go get a pig, but before I go get it, I want to learn how to handle it? I'll say that 80 to 90% of the people that come to the class are in one of those two categories. And then it's kind of a split between new hunters and then established and and established hunters i ask everybody at the beginning of class who here hunts or has access to be given feral hog and nine out of ten people will raise their hand okay it's very rare that

somebody shows up just to watch a feral hog butchery and then i ask where their land is just because i like to know what kind of hogs we're talking about like is it on the coast is in south Texas is it in the pecan groves northwest of here to kind of get an idea of what you're dealing with and almost all of them have you know are hunting and so I'd say it's a very high proportion of those people are hunters and a very high proportion of those hunters have been hunting for a long time do you feel like with the restaurant and with the classes is there a um thing you're getting at like if you die they'll chisel something on your tombstone like this man taught demonstrated pigs man did he love pigs uh with you know this man would never shut the fuck up

about wild pigs i think uh yeah i i i'm pretty i'm you know i think that's my the feral hogs are are really a cause of mine you know i really like to promote the eating of them and i i just see them as a resource and i it's a it's like it's a resource and then the more we use of that the less of another resource we use less of someone else's resource we use and it's it's just a win win win you know and it's like i'd love to debate a vegetarian on the ethics of eating feral hogs. Because I would like to hear the argument. It's like, well, do we put them in a big feral hog preserve? Well, yeah.

That's what we do with wild horses. Yeah. And they would argue that you're ending the life of a sentient being and causing it suffering, and that that sentient being shouldn't be blamed for the fact that we turned its ancestors loose on the land. Correct. But here we are. Yeah, so then that's where it gets tricky. But here we are.

So we've got to reckon with this. And that's where people are, that's where those arguments start to fall apart because they'll be like well yeah because they're overpopulated yeah because they're not native and you're like well what about the sentient part because i don't think that you feel that way about grizzly bear hunting right and they're sentient too right and and so they're like i'll end that sentient life because i don't like that one right um we're talking about eating crickets last night yeah and the movement to eat more insects right and i was like a bite of crickets you're killing so many things at each bite yeah it's too much death has a lot of weight. Yeah. It's like all those little souls, hundreds of them.

Hundreds of them in one piece of cricket flour. What about caviar? Yeah. That's just. I guess that's a little stickier. Pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop. Death. Yeah.

Death upon death. Oh, yeah. So plug, plug. We're going to wrap it up because you've got to leave to go fishing. Yeah. Plug your, double plug your book, plug your restaurant, and plug your class. Yeah. And then plug that guy again.

No, don't plug him again. Yeah, I'll see him soon enough. He's going to be pretty excited about this. Oh, is that right? Oh, yeah. He's a really wonderful guy too. Um, he's one of my,

you know, if you have guides and they're just not, they're not fun, you know, it's the worst. Uh, he's, he's just generally nice and he obviously loves what he does.

So that's another plug for, uh, well, you'll have to hit rewind to hear the name of the guide service. Um, the book is a field, uh, like, like I said, we, we put that out and that's, Well, you'll have to hit rewind to hear the name of the guide service. The book is A Field. Like I said, we put that out about seven years ago that that came out. And, you know, I look back on that as being, you know, when you look back on anything, you're like, oh, I would have done that differently. But what I like about that was I was fairly new to it and I think that having a perspective of being fairly new to

something gives you a good deal of empathy to other new people that are new to it. That's a good point. I like that. I'm really, I'm proud of it and the next book I think is much more refined. We know a lot more about our audience with this one and it's all feral hog and we're you know we're in the final kind of design stages of that book and we're real proud of it it's got a lot of recipes it's got a lot of detailed butchering diagrams and a lot of information about what to do with pigs what are you going to call it it's called the hog book there you go yeah not the wild hog book. There you go. Yeah. Not the wild hog book? No. Well, a chef's guide to hunting, preparing, and cooking wild pigs. Gotcha.

That's the subtitle. So just trying to keep it simple. And, you know, like I said, we've got the different categories of hogs that are going to be in there that you'll come across from a tiny pig to a big boar, what to do with all of that, how to combat the gaminess. Is it organized? Tiny pig? Small pig, medium pig, large sow, large boar. Oh, okay. Yeah, yeah.

Which is what I find to be like the general categories that make it more approachable. So if you get a big sow down, flip to that chapter and it's going to go over what you need to, or what likely you'll you'll want to do with that hog you ever hear a dude clayton saunders no he's interesting guy divine meats divine meat okay yeah i know well i mean i i didn't know his name but definitely they're a huge processor mostly export processor i think wild hogs yeah man that dude can cook a pork

shoulder though man holy shit that stuff is good. Yeah. Remember that? Yeah. I mean, that is a clearing house for pigs in South Texas. It's not too- We hung out with him. We brought some of our own pigs in there. We caught them up.

And then he cooked us some. Cooked a sow shoulder on his pit with a mop. Yeah. We actually put his mop in our cookbook, like Clayton Saunders, Divine Meat, mop. That was good. That dude's good. Yeah. I mean i mean they can be great he knows a lot about pigs too yeah yeah you should hang out with him someday yeah i definitely want to connect with him so you plugged your book yeah plug your next book tell people about your restaurants uh in austin's uh we've got the two places where we're sitting right now is daidue butcher butcher shop and supper club. We've got a little meat counter here.

And then as we kind of discussed, like our focus on local ingredients, menu changes daily here. We're open for lunch and dinner. And then downtown, we have a little taqueria, like dead center downtown, kind of close to the river. It's in a food hall and it's a small little spot. It's got a little wood burning grill and we just serve a pretty small menu of tacos and a couple little sides. But it's- You serve access to your Neil guy and wild pig in there?

There it's a feral hog and Neil guy down there. We don't have any beef on the menu at all. It's a, we do a venison taco. It's like I said, this this tiny little menu we've got some some good chicken on there shrimp uh mushroom two feral hog tacos and a venison taco and that's pretty much it what's that place called i do a taqueria okay yeah yeah so the italian word followed by a mexican word yeah it's ridiculous i've dug i my bed. I got to lie in it now. So yeah, those are the two restaurants. And then we have the third branch of the business is the new school of traditional cookery.

And that's mostly what I focus on. And that's the classwork, butchery demos, kind of like hunting camp catering services where we will come out for however long you want, a couple nights, and we cook every meal. If you want to provide the venison or the hog or the turkey or the fish or whatever, we're ready to improvise and do anything. And then we do classes during the day between hunts typically, you know, like, what do you want to learn about? Well, we got, you know, we caught eight bass out of the pond and somebody shot a turkey. Cool. Bring it on. That's what's for dinner.

And we'll sit there and do as much as we can. We have a van that's basically just a roadshow that's got anything that we'll need in it. And we can improvise based on what you've got. And we'll just try to bring our perspectives and help people improve their cooking and processing, things like that so that sounds like a fun day at work is the best it is absolutely the best and then we do some public stuff too where people can just sign on and we'll take them to a ranch that's a partner and a guide out there and so i mean that that's an amazing day you get up you guide somebody maybe they shoot their first deer their first pig and then you you cook them lunch and then you do a class and they sit down and eat with all the guides and have a big dinner at the

end of the day you know based on what we've got it's a it's an amazing job I'm very lucky but that's primarily what I do now besides kind of bounce between the the restaurants and is is organizing these things and we go all over the state and probably next season even beyond. So it's a lot of fun. How do people find that? It's all on the Dai Due website, D-A-I-D-U-E. If you Google that, it'll come up. And all three of those businesses are on there and all the information and press and different

packages that we offer hit us with the proverb again the italian proverb from two kingdoms from the two kingdoms of nature choose food with care yeah i like that got any final thoughts yanni day so many i don't have anything organized the final thought is we should should introduce That would be my final thought. Go ahead. Corinne Schneider. Corinne Schneider. Been sitting here.

Yeah. Patiently. Yeah. Not saying a damn thing. I was trying to figure out, you know, the best way to slide in. Didn't want to bring the floor. Oh, did you want me to do like a flat out intro early on?

Oh, no. Well. I just wanted to all of a sudden have your voice come in and surprise people. Like there's an intruder. Corinne's our new podcast producer. Yeah. Working on all kinds of stuff.

Yeah. Including what I now think is the, have you listened to Cal's Week in Review? Mm-mm. It's the best thing on the internet. All right. It's the best thing that a person could possibly get for free and it's better than 95 of the shit you could buy in this world i will i will listen to it on my way to the coast all you need is 20 you'll be able to burn through it's 20 minutes long i got three and

a half hours to kill your daughter like well there's what seven episodes yeah 20 minutes long yeah or so it's the week in review. All right. My kids love it. I'm on it. It's my kids' favorite show because they like the sound effects. Oh. There are those who would have you believe that the sound effects are annoying, but they're not because it makes kids like it. Okay.

Cal's week in review. Cal's week in review. I'm going to binge it. Best thing on the internet. Yeah. All right. Oh, I did have one follow-up question. We got enough time? It's like 11 right

now. What time did you say you were going to leave? Tell us something, Corinne. Now that you've been intro'd, don't waste Yann's time. Did you like your supper last night? The supper was exquisite. Do you use the word supper? Supper, yeah. It's a supper club. More likely dinner, but yeah, appropriately supper.

It was incredible. it was like a whole explosion in my brain at one point you hit the table and used the swear word i did i did she hit the table and used the dirty word i did a little uh it was so good did a little happy dance um no i mean i think what you're doing here, Jesse, is incredible. It's like an artist's studio combined with a laboratory. And I mean, for me, it's just everything on the menu or so many things on the menu, I think the average person doesn't know you can eat that. And that's kind of what that exposure is. It's not just the standard stuff in the grocery store.

There's just so much more that is edible and, you know, delicious. And it's just a whole kind of education. I think it's really inspiring, should be inspiring for people to look around to see what more they can consume instead of the standard iceberg lettuce. Not to knock iceberg lettuce. Iceberg is awesome. But I really appreciate that. And that is 100% our goal here,

is for people to just realize what they've got around them. I mean, you have a root that grows around here that you said you make tea out of. I mean, they grow mangoes in Texas. I don don't know if people knew that i didn't know that but holy shit get the mango sorbet that stuff will blow your mind so good what else you got for precluders bring it back all the way back around you're bringing her around to take in uh you're telling me to bring her around nope nope i am i'm going to I'm setting it up never a doubt in my mind

talking about educating people and using more of the animal and bringing it back around to in the beginning we were talking about taking hearts and livers out of gut piles is there anything else that you take out of that animal that's you know forget about the shanks and meats and bones but anything else that you take out of that animal that's, you know, forget about the shanks and meats and bones.

Sure. Anything else is hard and liver-ish. Yeah. And then what would you do with it? Caul fat, for sure. I love caul fat. In fact, we cooked a boned out feral hog country rib yesterday. And then.

Pardon my interruption. Have you also heard it called uh lace fat or leaf no leaf is different leaf is different leaf is the is the the the waxy fat the solid fat on the kidneys and stuff around the kidneys that's leaf got it and that that's rendered into large we definitely if you get a big pig we that stuff's pure gold um and it's a it's a really useful softer fat it's not waxy uh the call fat sure and that i mean if we can get it if it doesn't tear or if i need some and then sometimes the kidneys we'll pull the kidneys out uh we make boudin i mean it's it's funny because like our almost our entire off Ophel cooking game is, is centered

around boudin. If you're familiar with that, like that spicy rice and Ophel sausage. It's That's from Easter here, right? That's like a Cajun dish. It is. Um, my director of operations, uh, for the, for the school, Morgan, she's from, uh, East Texas.

She's from China, Texas. So they grow a lot of rice there. And so the rice-based sausage factors in pretty heavily. And she is the master at making really awesome boudin with any liver, guts, whatever, from any animal. So we'll take the heart, the liver, the kidneys, and then maybe a little bit of like fatty meat and boil that down and then grind that and add that into the rice. And I love that part of the class because people are like, I'm not going to eat that. And then they eat that.

They're like, this is fantastic. Yeah. Kids will eat it, you know, if you don't make it too spicy. And so, yeah, it's just funny, but like almost 100% of all the offal that we pull just goes into boudin because it's just, I think, the best way to. I got to try that. Yeah, it's good. What about the caul fat?

I like it for wrapping stuff. In fact, my favorite way to use caul fat is to cook something until it's tender, like a shank, and then completely chill it down. Maybe rub that down with something that's delicious, that's like sweet or sour or fatty or whatever and then wrap that in caul fat and then grill that until the caul fat's crispy yeah and so you've got free tender meat on the inside i'm giving away one of the best recipes in the book right now too um the one we tested yesterday um and then you and you uh and you just cook that until it's uh nice and brown but there's one secret step that you have to that until it's nice and brown.

But there's one secret step that you have to take, otherwise it'll be disastrous. So you have to buy the book to know. You need to make sure to not have a big sip of ice water after eating it. Along those lines. Yeah, but yeah, it'll be included in the book. You got a secret to cut the waxiness? No, I'm just full of shit. There's no secret. Oh, so that's just it. You're just trying to get people to buy the book. Oh book you got a secret to cut the waxiness no i'm just full

of shit there's no secret oh so that's just it you're just trying to lure people in oh we found that with that call fat you can definitely overdo it you put too much on there yeah and like you'll never get it to crisp up you'll never get to really cook through but yeah you got it but i mean you got to cook and cook and cook and cook it i mean it'll eventually kind of render out but yeah it's easy to over apply the call fat and it's fun too to wrap stuff in that yeah but you're doing two things right because you're sort of basting then the internal meat with that the drippings oh it works like a charm it was really good yesterday you know that that trick of it's not something a lot of people do is cook something one way like braise something

down until it's tender, and then put it on the grill. Yeah, we do it all the time. Because like deer ribs. Yeah. We just cut the deer, like leave the whole damn thing on the bone, cut it up with a hacksaw or whatever. Yeah.

And then cook them, braise them until they're tender, crock pot them until they're tender, and then take them out, put a mop on them, and grill them. Yeah. Oh, my God, it's good my first book it's a lot of work right people like oh my god you know it's not that much work no what's nice too i've realized you do it ahead of time that happens with that method is that um if you like take them once they're done braising you take them out of that liquid pretty quickly

a lot of tallow is being left behind man you're ready to tell so then you're not dealing with that waxiness so much. Yeah. That was a recipe from my first book called Cheater Ribs, where we just poach off feral hog ribs that are kind of lean and then grill them and mop them with. Call them cheater ribs? Yeah.

We started doing them in pressure cookers, too. Yeah. You get done quick, but you got to be careful, because if you go five minutes too long. They'll fall apart on the grill. Yeah, and then you can't get them out. So I kind of like would rather take a little bit of time my brother man he's got pretty dialed with his pressure cooker but i'd rather take a little bit of time and get them at just right because a lot of times you're sort of like lifting them out with

a slotted spoon and trying to grill them and shit because they just want to cool them off fall apart do it ahead of time pull them out like whatever you're doing and just cool them all the way down and then they get back up yeah they get they get firm and then you can just slap them on the grill and handle them better oh yeah absolutely that's a hot tip man you know we're gonna do a hot tip off i don't know if you know this i didn't as soon as we're done we're gonna do a hot tip off you should have saved that i should have saved that for the hot tip i bet j Jesse's got one or two others. Also, because my curry comb.

That, dude. We're going to do a hot tip off, and you already wasted all your hot tips. I'm a little. There's no reason that he can't do these things in this hot tip off, these two items. They can appear twice. Sure. Okay.

We'll do a hot tip off right now. It'll go on Instagram later, and people will get to see. They'll scroll back through the feed. I'm going to do, I'm going to do a totally new one. And they'll get to see if you're like a, if you're like a one trick pony or not. I'm going to, I'm going to crush you with the tip. All right. Thank you. That was unwise. Jesse, Jesse Griffiths. Thank you for joining us. Thank you for joining us. Thank you. If you liked hearing from Chef Jesse Griffiths on our podcast, you have an opportunity to watch him on our new fishing series on YouTube. It's called Das Boat.

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