Taste of the Wild

Danielle Davis

Hunter and angler Danielle Davis connected to resourcefulness and the richness of sharing game meals through her father, with whom she’s spending several days hunting pheasant this season.

“Game meat makes my cooking more rewarding,” she says. “When I’ve gotten that close to the source and hunted those ingredients myself? I don’t think there’s anything that epitomizes pure nourishment more than wild foods.”

Founder of the Western Meat Collective, Davis collaborates with chefs, farmers, and ranchers to teach butchery, whole-animal cookery, and charcuterie — artisanal skills that can bring a culinary twist to freshly sourced protein.

RECIPE: Davis Family Braised Pheasant With Currants

Kristen Blizzard

For Kristen Blizzard, who with her husband, Trent, manages the website Modern-Forager.com, “Foraging has always been about community and this idea of sharing experiences. With mushrooms—chanterelles, porcini, whatever they may be—one of the most amazing things is the terroir, this connectedness to the land. You open up a jar of freshly dried mushrooms two weeks or two years later, and the smell and taste of the forest remind you of where you were, who you were with.”

On their first date, Kristen and Trent hunted mushrooms, a first for both. Their foraging adventures became a metaphor for living. In addition to Modern Forager, they recently published Wild Mushrooms: A Cookbook and Foraging Guide. More than a collection of recipes, it’s a culinary homage rooted in friendships, adventures, and discovery.

“As foragers in this community of like-minded individuals, one of the coolest things we do is share our creations: a meal, an amazing jam, a scone, pickles, this new method or that.”

Here, Kristen pairs chanterelles and feral apricots found around Glenwood Springs for a jam unlike any.

RECIPE: Chanterelle-Apricot Jam

Andreas Fischbacher

Recently retired restaurateur Andreas Fischbacher (of Allegria and Cloud Nine fame, among others) has spent some of his newfound time hunting: red stag and wild boar in Europe this past summer, and, later, high-alpine buck, antelope, and bear in Colorado and Alaska.

At elevations far above pungent sage and scrub, the longtime chef describes dense earthy meat, almost sweet from the succulent grasses, berries, and forbs that flourish in cooler temperatures. Fischbacher endorses whole-animal harvest with gustatory, Old World glee. “What spoils first, you eat first—nothing better for me,” he says of offal such as liver, heart, or kidneys.

An adept horseman, he likes to get in deep and travel light, “but always with salt, pepper. Some garlic, onions, potatoes. A cast-iron pan.

“You have an open fire,” he adds. “Pick the mushrooms, pick some berries. You go out and enjoy the flavor of the woods, harvest what’s there. You cut it. You make it. You eat it. Done! It’s absolutely fantastic. Can’t find it in a restaurant.”

RECIPE: Wild Liver with Root Wood-Smoked Bacon, Porcini, and Huckleberry Sauce on Crostini and Local Greens