← Legends of the Wild, A Field And Stream Production | Hunting, Fishing and the Outdoors
Legends of the Wild, A Field And Stream Production | Hunting, Fishing and the Outdoors
Episode 21 - From Field to Table: Better Wild Game Cooking Starts Here
00:53:47
Turn every hunt into unforgettable meals with simple, proven wild game cooking strategies.
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- [00:01]
Jagermeister Narrator
They say you should learn something new every day. Like how you should only drink Jagermeister at 0 degrees Fahrenheit, ice cold, like those frozen cavemen they find. Which makes you wonder, what would a caveman think of Jagermeister? Well, if you served it warm, he'd probably throw it in your face, say unga bunga and storm off. And nobody wants that. So drink it cold or not at all. Jagermeister. Damn, that's cold. Drink responsibly. Jagermeister liqueur, 35% alcohol by volume. Imported by Mast. Jagermeister US White Plains, New York.
- [00:28]
Amazon Ad Narrator
Amazon presents Jeff versus taco truck salsa. Whether it's verde roja or the orange one, for Jeff, trying any salsa is like playing Russian roulette with a flamethrower. Luckily, Jeff saved with Amazon and stocked up on antacids, ginger tea and milk. Habanero. More like habanero. Yes. Save the everyday with Amazon.
- [01:00]
Sam (Podcast Host)
This is Legends of the Wild presented by Field and Stream. Let's get into it. Record recordings that sound good in your ears. Yeah. Too loud. Loud enough.
- [01:18]
Jeff Benda (Wild Game and Fish Expert)
This is way better than the Salty Yak podcast. The guys I'm going to Matagorda island with, he has done it once with me and once with the guys on the trip where they recorded for about 30 minutes to an hour.
- [01:29]
Sam (Podcast Host)
And then he realized, I'm not recording. Yeah, I have.
- [01:34]
Jeff Benda (Wild Game and Fish Expert)
That was after a cooking.
- [01:35]
Sam (Podcast Host)
I have. I have been part of one of those where we recorded for like an hour and then they hadn't hit record. And so we tried to, you know, tried to redo it. And you go back and you're like, well, what we were talking about, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's like filming that cooking video.
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Jeff Benda (Wild Game and Fish Expert)
They just gotta redo the whole thing.
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Sam (Podcast Host)
Yeah, yeah. Anyway. Yeah. So basically the way I start this, I just do a very short intro and then we'll dive into it.
- [02:02]
Jeff Benda (Wild Game and Fish Expert)
Great.
- [02:02]
Sam (Podcast Host)
So here we go. Hey, everybody. Welcome back to another episode of Legends of the Wild for Field and Stream. Today I am joined by my neighbor, my actual neighbor. This isn't like somebody that I had to travel long distance to. We live within a few blocks of each other. Yeah. So on the show today, we've got Jeff Benda, who is famous for Wild game and fish dot com. We're going to talk a lot about cooking, food recipes. But to kick this thing off, just. Welcome to the show, Jeff. Pumped to have you on and talk about the connection to what you're actually hunting and fishing.
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Jeff Benda (Wild Game and Fish Expert)
Yeah, I'm super excited because when I started this business And I was getting published in a few different magazines. My wife's like, I've never heard of that one. I've never heard of that one. I've never heard of that one. She's like, you know what? I'll know you made it when you're in Field and Stream. So this is, like, the greatest moment of my life within my marriage of, like, I've made it for this business. Being on this Field and Stream podcast is. I've listened to all of them. I love them. This is just a great project, and I'm just honored to be a part of it.
- [03:13]
Sam (Podcast Host)
Well, I appreciate you being a listener because as the. As the host of it, like, I'm pumped to have you on and I'm glad to help your marriage out. So you can tell. You can tell your wife that you finally made it.
- [03:23]
Jeff Benda (Wild Game and Fish Expert)
Yeah, I finally made it. Yeah.
- [03:26]
Sam (Podcast Host)
But as the host of this podcast, a lot of times I don't get to see, like, the back end of stuff. Like, I don't see, like, the reviews and, like, all the things that come in, like, to the Field and Stream network. So it's cool to know that there's people out there that are listening to this. And we have gotten really good feedback so far. So, you know, just going to keep that rolling.
- [03:41]
Jeff Benda (Wild Game and Fish Expert)
Yeah, that's great.
- [03:42]
Sam (Podcast Host)
Yeah. So before we sat down to record this, we cooked a couple things. So the. And the reason that I wanted to do that was because we are on in here in North Dakota. We're recording this in Fargo. Here in North Dakota, we're on the precipice of spring turkey seasons. Turkey seasons are open across the South, I think Georgia's open, Florida's open, Mississippi's open. Alabama is open. Anything down south has opened already. So there are people turkey hunting all across the country. I'm excited to be turkey hunting within it's like 10 days now. 10 days from now, I'll be hunting in North Dakota. Yeah. And so I brought over a North Dakota turkey breast. And what did you make out of it?
- [04:25]
Jeff Benda (Wild Game and Fish Expert)
Yes, you brought, like, a one breast, so like half of that. Half of the turkey. And but what was great is you had the tenderloin attached. So we actually did two dishes because these are just two very different things. So you have the turkey breast and then you have the tenderloin. So we did a. With the turkey breast. It was. We measured it out. It was like a pound and a half.
- [04:47]
Sam (Podcast Host)
Exactly.
- [04:49]
Jeff Benda (Wild Game and Fish Expert)
And so recently I put on, I think it's probably most. My most recent pheasant Recipe on the website@wildgamingfish.com you have a golden pheasant curry. And so instead we use. But it uses a pound and a half of pheasant. So instead we substituted and used the turkey. So I got to serve that up to you guys. And then with the tenderloin, we did something a little bit more kid friendly because I know you have a one and a half year old, and my daughter absolutely loves this recipe. And this is a fried turkey tenders. And we had a little mashed potatoes and gravy and a little asparagus on the plate. That is one of my daughter's absolute favorites. And so really, really added just this one. Just this one side. It's amazing. Like, when I started developing recipes, turkey recipes for the website, the amount of recipes you can get off of one turkey, you know, and so when you're developing recipes and. And you're having to try to get them right and experiment, you know, it. It's great because you just. You just have so many different options. Literally. Um, with one turkey, if somebody gets a wild turkey right now, you can probably do just off of the website recipes. You could probably get like five or six different.
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Sam (Podcast Host)
Yeah.
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Jeff Benda (Wild Game and Fish Expert)
Dishes to serve for your family off of one turkey.
- [06:14]
Sam (Podcast Host)
Yeah. And one thing I think we need to put to bed right away. And I didn't bring over any legs today, but there's a lot of people out there that turkey hunt that are listening to this. That will throw the legs away.
- [06:23]
Jeff Benda (Wild Game and Fish Expert)
Yes.
- [06:24]
Sam (Podcast Host)
And we need to shame them enough where they keep the legs and understand that that is a delicious part. So can you just talk about, like, why you need to save the legs?
- [06:33]
Jeff Benda (Wild Game and Fish Expert)
Yeah. We just had grouse skewers. Thigh. Grouse thigh skewers and pheasant thigh skewers last night that the girls tried out and just that thigh meat and the legs, just tossing those. It's just like we were just down deer hunting in Alabama and the guys are like, you keep the legs. They don't even. You know, the group of guys that I was with, now, I'm not trying to. This isn't everybody in Alabama.
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Sam (Podcast Host)
Yeah. Okay.
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Jeff Benda (Wild Game and Fish Expert)
Right. We got a lot of listeners in Alabama, a lot of people, great people who hunt and keep the. The shanks. But I mean, it's so interesting on what we decide to keep and what we don't. And we need to honor all of that animal. And there's just so much meat.
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Sam (Podcast Host)
Yeah.
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Jeff Benda (Wild Game and Fish Expert)
Like on a Canada goose legs.
- [07:21]
Sam (Podcast Host)
The.
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Jeff Benda (Wild Game and Fish Expert)
The leg and the thigh. And I see people with these pictures of them lined up with 100 geese. You know, whether it's early Canada goose here, where you can shoot 15 a day here in North Dakota, or snow goose season right now, it's insane. And they've got all these birds lined up. They're breasting out the meat and they're tossing away the rest. Hundreds of pounds. I mean, on one hunt, hundreds of pounds of meat that you could, that you could feed just so many people with and have so many meals and introduce. You could give it away and enter and just introduce people to it. Super easy. So for turkey legs, you know, you have the thigh and you have the legs. So sometimes I'll literally. You could, if, if anybody's just like, ah, it's too much work.
- [08:09]
Sam (Podcast Host)
Yeah.
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Jeff Benda (Wild Game and Fish Expert)
Literally just, I, I don't care. Skin them out. Skin them out. If you really just are like, save time and I, you know, this is too much. Cut off the, the foot, skin them out. Okay. And throw them in a slow cooker.
- [08:21]
Sam (Podcast Host)
Yeah, that's it.
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Jeff Benda (Wild Game and Fish Expert)
Literally throw them in a slow cooker and you can make broth. You can make shredded turkey tacos or enchiladas. You can do like a barbecue chicken sandwich. But with, but with turkey, there are endless things that you can do with that, and that is pounds and pounds of meat that you are wasting. So I just really encourage, if, you know, maybe you want to do a lot of work with it. There's, there's a smoked turkey leg that I did on, on the website. You know, you're going to want the skin on that. But if you want like a lazy man's or lazy, you know, just like, hey, I just don't want to do the work.
- [08:55]
Sam (Podcast Host)
I mean, basically just letting it cook down, like, just cook it down. And that's, I think that's the biggest. With lots of things. I think that's people's aversion to cooking turkey legs because they're a wild bird. It's a much stronger leg. Right. So they don't have, they have a bunch of tendons and things in the leg that you need to peel out of there after it cooks down.
- [09:13]
Jeff Benda (Wild Game and Fish Expert)
And honestly, if you, if you don't want to deal with that, right, because you get all those, especially for like a duck or a pheasant, you put those legs in there, like in a slow cooker and. But like, you know, just, just use them for a broth, then at least you're going to do the broth. You literally just put water in a slow cooker and let it sit there for all day while you're at work or overnight with some vegetables and. And then just strain it off. You literally can just strain it off. But at least you're getting that. You're getting that stock that you can use. And you saw it, like, we use some of it today. I've still got four jars of pheasant stock that I made. Just homemade pheasant stock that I got from.
- [09:53]
Sam (Podcast Host)
From the legs, for sure.
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Jeff Benda (Wild Game and Fish Expert)
We did. We grilled the thighs, and I separated the legs. So I think it's a great thing to do with turkeys as well.
- [10:00]
Sam (Podcast Host)
Yeah, absolutely. Well, yeah. And then that bird that we cooked up today came from North Dakota.
- [10:07]
Jeff Benda (Wild Game and Fish Expert)
Yes.
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Sam (Podcast Host)
Yeah. Which I, you know. So last spring was on a hunt in North Dakota, and that this particular bird happened to be part of a double that my buddy Ben o' Brien and I had. He was actually on the podcast last episode. So we filmed it for Roost, a turkey hunting show. But we were basically worked in on this roost. We kind of hadn't hunted there the day before, hadn't put birds to bed. So we're basically going in blind. But we knew that there was turkeys in the area. Right. So we got up on this ridge kind of above all of these different drainages that went down, and there was a group of birds that was gobbling down kind of the middle drainage. And so we dropped off this steep face, worked down in and around kind of on the. Got to this, like, finger ridge that was in the middle of the drainage. And we kind of snuck up behind this little oak tree, and because there was birds.
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Jeff Benda (Wild Game and Fish Expert)
Oh, wait, I know this place. Yeah, I know this spot.
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Sam (Podcast Host)
You know this spot?
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Jeff Benda (Wild Game and Fish Expert)
No, I think just confirm it on. We're gonna get on. On xp, but I'm pretty sure I know the spot. Okay, go ahead. So we.
- [11:09]
Sam (Podcast Host)
We loop in and around. We kind of get, like, the birds are gobbling. We're calling to them a little bit, then they're hammering back, and we're trying to the. We didn't know if they were gonna come up high, like, to us, or drop down to the bottom, because it was a little bit more open in the bottom of this drainage. And it just seemed like a spot and where birds would end up traveling to. And we got in behind this tree and started calling. And there's, you know, you couldn't see him, but over the hill, there's at least four or five times gobbling back every time we'd call. And then a hen got all fired up, and she was really mad. And so I'm Mimicking her and talking back to her. And at one point Ben thought that the birds got hung up. He's like, I think they're hung up over the hill. And that hen called and I called and those birds gobbled and they were like, had cut like half the distance. So they were like literally just on the other side of this little knoll in front of us. And the next thing that you see, and we have it on video, the next thing you see is literally a wall of turkey fans come over this ridge. And when it happened, when they gobbled so close, I was like, they're not hung up. I turned to Ben, I was like, here they come. And this wall of strutting turkeys comes towards us and they're getting closer and closer and closer. Our camera guy at the time, Brett, he was like, I'm on him whenever. And I kept waiting for space because like I needed one to break off to be able to shoot it. Yeah, well by the time one broke off they were about from me to you away. So we've got five strutting turkeys at like six feet.
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Jeff Benda (Wild Game and Fish Expert)
Now are you, is your back up against.
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Sam (Podcast Host)
Oh no, back up against.
- [12:41]
Jeff Benda (Wild Game and Fish Expert)
You're literally in a grass.
- [12:42]
Sam (Podcast Host)
We were against the tree, kind of like behind, kind of behind. But it was like one of those trees that has like five or trunks like coming up. So like I'm on the right side, Ben's on the left side which is opposite cuz I'm left handed. So we were doing it wrong. But we're kind of hidden behind this like scraggly little tree. And they just like kept coming and coming and coming. And finally one of them broke off and to the right and I was able to shoot it. I'm basically shooting up at it at this point. And then they all want. A couple of them flew up into the tree and another one flew over and one landed out in the knoll where they had just come over and then Ben shot that one. So we doubled up nice. So that's awesome. So this turkey we made two recipes out of came from that hunt. That's great. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And normally my turkey didn't find any BB's at all.
- [13:27]
Jeff Benda (Wild Game and Fish Expert)
So I just want to let everybody know. I want to assure everybody how amazing
- [13:31]
Sam (Podcast Host)
of a shot Sam is at 6ft. I think I'm lucky I didn't miss. Yeah, I was using a little 410.
- [13:38]
Jeff Benda (Wild Game and Fish Expert)
Now I've shot. I missed ducks and geese at 6ft.
- [13:41]
Sam (Podcast Host)
They were a little too close.
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Jeff Benda (Wild Game and Fish Expert)
I mean maybe they weren't that but yeah.
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Sam (Podcast Host)
Yeah.
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Jeff Benda (Wild Game and Fish Expert)
Too close. Yeah, a little too close. But that's great.
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Sam (Podcast Host)
Yeah, it was, it was a one top five turkey hunting experience ever. It was incredible. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
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Jeff Benda (Wild Game and Fish Expert)
And I love hearing those stories because I think all of us, you know, we sit down when we bring meat home from a hunt or bring a fish home and we want to share it with our family or we share it with our friends and then they have to put up with us telling the story of that hunt or things like that. But you know, it, it makes it special and it puts that connection to it.
- [14:20]
Sam (Podcast Host)
Right.
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Jeff Benda (Wild Game and Fish Expert)
Like I cook for my wife and our 10 year old daughter and Lucia has grown up. Our daughter Lucia has just grown up with me. Every time we sit down, she knows she, she connects with that. Now she may not have been on that hunt, but the moment we get home, she's helping process. And even when she was little, like three years old, when it was time to vacuum seal that meat, she's like, dad, what is this? I'm like, it's a deer. She's like, okay, I'm going to draw a picture of, on, of a deer on here. So you know what it is? Even though it says deer, it says Montana.
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Sam (Podcast Host)
Yep.
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Jeff Benda (Wild Game and Fish Expert)
Mule deer, doe. I always get very specific with my packaging.
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Sam (Podcast Host)
Yeah.
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Jeff Benda (Wild Game and Fish Expert)
Um, and the date and then. But she would draw a picture of that and mean for years and years, you know, now she helps label them with just what it is. But she's always had that connection with that. And so it's always really special. It's always just really special to be, to not only be able to cook that, but then for you to, as my neighbor, literally my neighbor, to walk to, to, to come over here just a couple blocks and to bring wild game and then for me to be able to, to cook that for you, that was great. And there's leftovers and we're gonna send them home for you and your family. But I just, it's something really special and it's, it's why I do what I do.
- [15:51]
Sam (Podcast Host)
Yeah. And it's a, it's, it's cool to have somebody who's dedicated so much time to it because growing up, like, we hunted a lot, but like we were not, we didn't know how to cook it right. So like, you know, we would, we would hunt ducks or geese or deer or whatever. But like our dad, like, not, not his fault at all. He just grew up not knowing how to cook wild game well. And then we ate a bunch of bad wild game. And so it puts this when you think about wild game as a kid, you're like, ah, not my favorite. Like, we'd get a lot of jerky made, you know, like, as a kid, because we didn't know how to, like, properly prepare it and cook it. And it. It honestly took me a long time until I was doing a lot more work with people who knew how to cook, where the simplest things, they would take a chunk of a back strap or, you know, take a whole leg, like the flip flop guy. Like, you know, all these different things where you're just. You're doing a very simple process of cooking the meat and you take a bite of it and you're like, oh, that is how it's supposed to taste. Yeah. And you go, oh, I can figure that out. And then it becomes so much more enjoyable. And the earlier you can get that instilled into a kid's mind or, you know, or like a younger person, like, going forward when they're going out in the field. Like, you're not just trying to stack up animals because there's a per. There's a point in time in your life where, like, that's the goal if, you know, come up and hunt.
- [17:12]
Jeff Benda (Wild Game and Fish Expert)
Yeah, for sure.
- [17:13]
Sam (Podcast Host)
But, like, above and beyond that, you're like, oh, I can take this whole pile of mallards and pan serum in butter and have, like, the most delicious meal for me and my college buddies. Right. If you know how. So having that, like, just even the most basic understanding literally changes the game. Literally. Yeah. It makes it so much more enjoyable. And just having that connection, being able to share, like, good food, not just, like, hey, here's, you know, some sticks that I had, you know, processed. Or here's it, like.
- [17:41]
Jeff Benda (Wild Game and Fish Expert)
Right.
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Sam (Podcast Host)
Yeah. Being able to tell that story and share it. Yeah.
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Jeff Benda (Wild Game and Fish Expert)
And I think, too, it's not all butchers, but many, many, many of them. You know, you take in your deer and it gets in a pile.
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Sam (Podcast Host)
Right.
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Jeff Benda (Wild Game and Fish Expert)
They're weighing it. But yeah, you know, when it comes to burger and things like that, it's. It's like you don't know if you're getting yours back.
- [18:03]
Sam (Podcast Host)
Yep.
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Jeff Benda (Wild Game and Fish Expert)
And so I think there's this great thing with processing your own. You know, Lucia, we were just down in Alabama, and she got first week in February and she shot her first two deer in one day. And I was just like, this is her first hunt.
- [18:18]
Sam (Podcast Host)
Yeah.
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Jeff Benda (Wild Game and Fish Expert)
Like, right after hunter safety, it was like just this super proud moment. I didn't know if it was going to be. I've always given her the option, you know, right. Do you want to do this or do you not? It's okay. Just, just because I gave you the foundation of where your food comes from. You know, I. I do not need you to be a hunter.
- [18:39]
Sam (Podcast Host)
Right.
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Jeff Benda (Wild Game and Fish Expert)
I do not need you to be a fisher. But if you want to participate in this, I'm going to give you all the tools to be able to do that. Because I did not have that growing up.
- [18:47]
Sam (Podcast Host)
Yeah.
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Jeff Benda (Wild Game and Fish Expert)
And so we went down there and she got it and we went to butcher. And they just, they don't do that.
- [18:57]
Sam (Podcast Host)
Right.
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Jeff Benda (Wild Game and Fish Expert)
I mean, just quartering and getting on ice, but like gutting it.
- [19:01]
Sam (Podcast Host)
Yeah.
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Jeff Benda (Wild Game and Fish Expert)
Keeping everything. And they were just like, no, we throw it in the truck and we drive it to town. Guts and everything.
- [19:08]
Sam (Podcast Host)
Yeah.
- [19:09]
Jeff Benda (Wild Game and Fish Expert)
And I was just talking to Hal Herring about this actually right before we went on the trip. We were at an event, a BHA event together and. And he was like, he same experience. He's had that same experience, you know, with family down there. That's just something that they, that's what they do. But here she, this 10 year old girl, there's all these people, men and women, standing around and they're watching her butcher this deer and, and you know, they're trying to get out the door and get to lunch and she's like, nope, we gotta grab this, this part and this part and this part. And she was very specific because she wanted every part of that deer.
- [19:47]
Sam (Podcast Host)
Yeah.
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Jeff Benda (Wild Game and Fish Expert)
And it was just so great to see grabbing the hose and washing out the cavity and cutting it up and her wanting to do it.
- [19:55]
Sam (Podcast Host)
Right.
- [19:56]
Jeff Benda (Wild Game and Fish Expert)
It was just such an honor to watch that progression.
- [20:01]
Sam (Podcast Host)
I mean, that's proud dad moment right there.
- [20:02]
Jeff Benda (Wild Game and Fish Expert)
It is, yeah. It just really, it really is. But then, you know, when it comes to. She is now able to tell that story.
- [20:14]
Sam (Podcast Host)
Yeah.
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Jeff Benda (Wild Game and Fish Expert)
When we sit down at the table and she's like, dad, where I'm, I'm always like, okay, this is your whitetail from Alabama. Right. This is your. This is. Dad, which one? And I had to put a star on it because she wanted to know was it the first one or is it her second one? Because she shot one in the morning, then she shot another one that evening.
- [20:32]
Sam (Podcast Host)
Yeah.
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Jeff Benda (Wild Game and Fish Expert)
She wanted to know. So I had. When I, when we packaged it and we. She wants to know exactly is this my first deer or is this my second deer? And it's so cool because she wants to repeat that story when we sit down at the table or we're sharing it with relatives when they come over. My parents are going to be here and we're going to have dinner tomorrow night and she wants to share some of that steak with them. It's just this special thing. It really is.
- [20:57]
Sam (Podcast Host)
Yeah.
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Jeff Benda (Wild Game and Fish Expert)
And. And it's just so great to be able to see whether whatever it is, whatever wild game that you're bringing home,
- [21:03]
Sam (Podcast Host)
you know, I'm glad you said it because, you know, you brought your daughter up into this and I, you know, as long as, you know, my kids want to do it, like, growing up, same thing. I'm going to give them the option, like, if they want to get into it, they'll have all the option to do it. Right. But it's cool that you brought her up through that and she's made the decision that she wants to be part of that. But like you said that you didn't have that growing up, so why don't you talk about getting into this hunting space later? Yeah.
- [21:30]
Jeff Benda (Wild Game and Fish Expert)
People may have considered me a weird child because when it was time, when I had a sibling or a parent who needed to go to a doctor or dentist appointment, I wanted to go along.
- [21:40]
Sam (Podcast Host)
Okay.
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Jeff Benda (Wild Game and Fish Expert)
And it was not because I liked the offices or the smells of, you know, antiseptic.
- [21:49]
Sam (Podcast Host)
Yeah. It's sterile environment.
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Jeff Benda (Wild Game and Fish Expert)
They had Field and Stream magazine. I did not grow up hunting. I did not grow up in a family that we had subscriptions for that. Yeah. Sunday mornings when we were trying to get out the door for church, I was getting yelled at because I was down in the basement watching fishing shows like Babe Winkleman and these kinds of shows. And we're trying to get out the door and I'm just, like, enthralled with this. The only experience that I would have was either riding my bike down to the public library and. And looking at the magazines there or these doctor's offices.
- [22:20]
Sam (Podcast Host)
Sure.
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Jeff Benda (Wild Game and Fish Expert)
Dentist offices. And I love them. I loved opening up to field and streaming and, like, I can just picture myself now for as little as I was, like my feet dangling over the chair.
- [22:30]
Sam (Podcast Host)
Yeah.
- [22:31]
Jeff Benda (Wild Game and Fish Expert)
And everybody. All this stuff going on. The receptionist's phone is ringing and everybody's paging through their magazines. And I didn't know what was going on around me because I was in this story. I was in the story with, you know, the. In the pictures of people walking through a field wearing. Wearing blaze orange or, you know, like just breath. Like a photo of, like, this breath going through the air on a cold morning, you know, as on a duck hunt. Or, you know, just all these experiences that I wasn't getting to do, but I was living through them. You know, I have This I had. I would read books like, not that my family wasn't lovely, they were a great family. But I had this fantasy about wanting to get lost in the woods by myself and having to survive. So I would read books like Sign of the Beaver, My side of the Mountain Hatchet wasn't a thing yet for me. I was too, I was too. I'm too old. But island of the Blue Dolphins, it. I loved any of those books where the kid would get left alone and they would have to survive in the wilderness and fish, hunt, cook and, and do that. And that's what I wanted. That's what I, I would write short stories about. You know, I just was enthralled with these. And Field and Stream magazine was such a. A huge part of that. My youth, of giving me a window, like letting me peer into this world that I only got to look at and only dream about until somebody actually took me hunting. And it wasn't until like years later.
- [24:15]
Sam (Podcast Host)
Yeah.
- [24:16]
Jeff Benda (Wild Game and Fish Expert)
Of going to college and being at Valley City State University. And this is after years of running around, running around and working restaurants in Minnesota and Florida and then coming back and wanting to get a real job with a salary and kind of not working 612 hour days in a restaurant.
- [24:37]
Sam (Podcast Host)
Yeah.
- [24:38]
Jeff Benda (Wild Game and Fish Expert)
And so wanting to go to school, to be a teacher and going to school and then. And again, you know, when I worked at restaurants in Florida, Minnesota, whatever it was, I'd work. Literally I'd work six days a week, 12 hours a day.
- [24:51]
Sam (Podcast Host)
Yeah.
- [24:51]
Jeff Benda (Wild Game and Fish Expert)
And every single time on my day off, I was fishing.
- [24:55]
Sam (Podcast Host)
Yeah.
- [24:55]
Jeff Benda (Wild Game and Fish Expert)
Go off on myself. Maybe I get someone to go with me. But a lot of times I was just by. I just wanted to be by myself. And I would go out into the woods and have that experience down by the stream. It didn't matter where it was. Lakeside, dock and just fish all day. And I would do the same thing in Florida, living on an island at a resort down there and just fish. Like after work, you know, get off at the restaurant, would close and I'd be standing in a tuxedo on a dock and they go looking over the Gulf of Mexico and. And then fast forward to Valley City and these guys are like, hey, Jeff, do you want to go hunting? I'm like, I would love to. No one has ever asked me. This has been my dream, literally for two decades.
- [25:35]
Sam (Podcast Host)
Yeah.
- [25:35]
Jeff Benda (Wild Game and Fish Expert)
And they're like, great, you go take hunter, Ed. So I went, took hunter, Signed up for hunter education here in North Dakota. I sat in a class with a bunch of 10 and 11 year olds. I got my hunter Ed. I got to go on my first duck hunt a couple days later, and we were successful. A couple weeks later, my first pheasant hunt. And a few weeks later, my first deer hunt. And now my plan was finish up my degree and leave North Dakota forever.
- [26:06]
Sam (Podcast Host)
Yeah.
- [26:07]
Jeff Benda (Wild Game and Fish Expert)
Because I had been trying to run away in my 20s, working these restaurant jobs, and I'd come back and I just getting introduced to hunting and getting outside, it was this absolute transformation for me. And those stories that I got to read in Field and Stream magazine were now true in my own life.
- [26:29]
Sam (Podcast Host)
Right.
- [26:30]
Jeff Benda (Wild Game and Fish Expert)
I had someone to mentor me. I had someone who said, do you want to get up at 3 o' clock in the morning and go out with us tomorrow? And I always said yes.
- [26:39]
Sam (Podcast Host)
Yep.
- [26:39]
Jeff Benda (Wild Game and Fish Expert)
And. And I'm just so thankful that there are people out there that took the time to introduce me to hunting because now I get to do what I do, you know, like completely full circle.
- [26:53]
Sam (Podcast Host)
Right.
- [26:53]
Jeff Benda (Wild Game and Fish Expert)
Like a guy who never got to grow up hunting and fishing and just dreamed about it. I know this is what I get to do for a living. Full time.
- [26:59]
Sam (Podcast Host)
Yeah.
- [27:00]
Jeff Benda (Wild Game and Fish Expert)
I'm writing wild game and fish recipes. I'm running a website on wild game and fish. And does it mean I get to go hunting and fishing all the time? I thought that's what it meant when I started this business. You know, it's a lot of, you know, there's tons of editing, lots of writing, but I get a ton of time outdoors.
- [27:18]
Sam (Podcast Host)
Yeah.
- [27:19]
Jeff Benda (Wild Game and Fish Expert)
And I get to balance it out with family time and just living where we live here in North Dakota. And the hunting and fishing opportunities are endless. You can literally go out every day of the year and do something outdoors. Right. And it's great.
- [27:32]
Sam (Podcast Host)
Yeah.
- [27:33]
Jeff Benda (Wild Game and Fish Expert)
It might be 20 below, but you can. But you can shotgun. You can go and do something. Yeah.
- [27:39]
Sam (Podcast Host)
I mean, like, I mean, if, like, if you fish especially, like, you can do it every single day of the entire year. Like, I mean. And.
- [27:46]
Jeff Benda (Wild Game and Fish Expert)
Yes.
- [27:46]
Sam (Podcast Host)
Right.
- [27:46]
Jeff Benda (Wild Game and Fish Expert)
So we don't have a closing season like Minnesota.
- [27:49]
Sam (Podcast Host)
Yeah. Right. Yeah. And you know, like, even if you only hunt the. The gap, well, there's never really an off time. Like you can be doing something at all times. So, like, whether it's trapping or, you know, walk a field for rabbits. Right, right. Yeah. It's literally never ending. And so it is a very cool state to be a resident of. And I think a lot of people miss that, like, because it's a lot of times flat and cold and windy here. Right. But there opportunity for like, sportsmen and women.
- [28:17]
Jeff Benda (Wild Game and Fish Expert)
Yeah.
- [28:17]
Sam (Podcast Host)
Is pretty incredible. Yeah.
- [28:19]
Jeff Benda (Wild Game and Fish Expert)
The outdoors. Getting introduced to the outdoors. That's why I stayed.
- [28:21]
Sam (Podcast Host)
Yeah.
- [28:22]
Jeff Benda (Wild Game and Fish Expert)
That's why I said, no, I'm not leaving to go to Florida. I'm going to stay here because. And. And live my dream of hunting and fishing. And I would literally, like, go to work. I had a regular 9 to 5 job back then. Went to an office, had a catering business on the side. But, uh, you know, I just. I. I would drive an hour west. An hour. Ish. I don't give up my spot.
- [28:46]
Sam (Podcast Host)
Yeah, that's fine.
- [28:48]
Jeff Benda (Wild Game and Fish Expert)
People will figure it out. It's public land anyway. Drive an hour west of Fargo. And I would shoot ducks.
- [28:53]
Sam (Podcast Host)
Yep.
- [28:54]
Jeff Benda (Wild Game and Fish Expert)
Four days a week.
- [28:55]
Sam (Podcast Host)
Yep.
- [28:56]
Jeff Benda (Wild Game and Fish Expert)
I got. I got my lab. Right. I'd drive there and then drop off the ducks, and that was it. Like, then go to work.
- [29:05]
Sam (Podcast Host)
Yep.
- [29:06]
Jeff Benda (Wild Game and Fish Expert)
And. And go to my office like, literally every single four days a week during. During hunting season. I mean, for, like, six weeks. It was kind of crazy.
- [29:12]
Sam (Podcast Host)
Yeah. I mean, the dentist and I had
- [29:14]
Jeff Benda (Wild Game and Fish Expert)
a boss who let me do that. Like, yeah, if you're gonna come up a little, you can come a little
- [29:17]
Sam (Podcast Host)
late, but then, like, the work be done. Yeah. Yeah.
- [29:20]
Jeff Benda (Wild Game and Fish Expert)
And it was phenomenal.
- [29:21]
Sam (Podcast Host)
So when did the transition. When did you decide to make the transition to, like. So you learned all the culinary skills in all these restaurants that you worked all over the place.
- [29:29]
Jeff Benda (Wild Game and Fish Expert)
Yeah.
- [29:29]
Sam (Podcast Host)
And then.
- [29:30]
Jeff Benda (Wild Game and Fish Expert)
And then had a catering business.
- [29:31]
Sam (Podcast Host)
And had a catering business.
- [29:32]
Jeff Benda (Wild Game and Fish Expert)
Yep.
- [29:32]
Sam (Podcast Host)
So you understand, you know, delivering food, like, making food for people and, like, you know, not just, you know, you're making a side dish here and there. Right. You're, like, mass producing good meals. Yeah. When did the decision transition between, like, oh, this is something that I do on the side to, like, I am going to make wild game and fish recipes full time.
- [29:53]
Jeff Benda (Wild Game and Fish Expert)
This was my wife.
- [29:54]
Sam (Podcast Host)
Okay.
- [29:56]
Jeff Benda (Wild Game and Fish Expert)
So I was like, many, many people who the. While I would take my deer to get butchered. I take it in, I'd get sticks. I get sausage.
- [30:05]
Sam (Podcast Host)
Right. I.
- [30:05]
Jeff Benda (Wild Game and Fish Expert)
So I'd have the steaks. Probably not even roast. I mean, it was like steak and sausage.
- [30:14]
Sam (Podcast Host)
Yeah.
- [30:15]
Jeff Benda (Wild Game and Fish Expert)
Literally, that was it. And maybe some burger. And my wife, when we first got married, she was like, I am so sick of deer sausage. I can't do this anymore. Right. But I was catering at the time, and I was, you know, this is early on in marriage, so especially somebody who cooks like me, who loves to cook. I would cook for her all the time because I was trying to impress her. That's why we had such a short engagement. It was great. So she relied on me for food and she just said one day she was like, can you make this wild game, this fish that you just caught down by the river, can you make it look like the things that you prepare for people for a catering event? Sure. Can you make it look like this thing in this cookbook? So we opened up a cookbook that was on a shelf and we paged her and she goes, that looks great. Can you make that for me? I don't even know what it was at the time. I said, yes, I can and I probably use venison for it. And she loved it. And then that just took me down a rabbit hole of starting to cook like that and really just wow. The more I cook meals for her to do that, the faster we're going to go through the meat and then the more often I can go hunting. It was pretty self serving really, because now I have to hunt more.
- [31:36]
Sam (Podcast Host)
As all of us, of course, but as all of us who try to make a living in this and want to spend more time hunting, we. It's all self serving.
- [31:42]
Jeff Benda (Wild Game and Fish Expert)
Like, what's crazy, like, I married a Minnesota farm girl and to this day they will tell you, like, we go and get beef, like we just don't buy beef.
- [31:50]
Sam (Podcast Host)
Yeah.
- [31:51]
Jeff Benda (Wild Game and Fish Expert)
People are would be amazed on like how many deer do you go through a year?
- [31:56]
Sam (Podcast Host)
Really?
- [31:56]
Jeff Benda (Wild Game and Fish Expert)
And I'm like, yeah, like deer and antelope. I know I don't like freak people out hearing this, but like our family will go through. It's close to six. You know, I mean there's not a antelope can be smaller. Right. But I mean really, to go through a whole year. But we don't ever go to the store and buy beef. Right. We don't, we don't like pork, sometimes bacon.
- [32:20]
Sam (Podcast Host)
Right.
- [32:21]
Jeff Benda (Wild Game and Fish Expert)
But we don't do a lot of sausage. So we just like that lean meat. And the girls have, they've just come to love it. And my wife would prefer that any day of the week. And if you ask them what's your favorite wild game? They're going to tell you. Pronghorn antelope. My wife and my daughter.
- [32:36]
Sam (Podcast Host)
Yeah.
- [32:37]
Jeff Benda (Wild Game and Fish Expert)
You know that they've just. This is what our, our family has done. Just because this is the meals that I've created and tried to make them simple things that you know, when, when. So when doing these recipes, I started doing these recipes and then for my wife, this is before Lucia was in the picture, before we had a baby. And then I started posting them on Facebook. Right?
- [33:01]
Sam (Podcast Host)
Yeah.
- [33:02]
Jeff Benda (Wild Game and Fish Expert)
Like you take a picture, a really horrible picture with your cell phone and you put it on Facebook. And somebody reached out. Justin Townsend from Harvesting Nature, and they run a website, and he said, hey, can we publish one of your recipes? I'm like, oh, my gosh, this is great.
- [33:15]
Sam (Podcast Host)
Absolutely. Yeah, that'd be cool.
- [33:17]
Jeff Benda (Wild Game and Fish Expert)
And we'll send you a T shirt, right? A free T shirt. Free recipe. That was my early on getting paid for a recipe. And so we. I did that, and then I submitted some recipes to magazines and they're like, yeah, we'll take six recipes. Like, oh, my gosh, this is. This could be a thing. Covid hit and there was Clubhouse. It was an audio. It was for iPhone users at the time. And so there was a bunch of chefs out of work chefs in these rooms, and we would all hang out together and talk. And then. But somebody, they were like, hey. Then we started doing like, zoom calls afterwards, and we'd kind of hang out in the evenings, but they were like, jeff, you know, I'm doing these. My restaurant's closed. And I'm started doing these online cooking classes, and they're selling out. And I'm now making more money on these online cooking classes than I ever
- [34:11]
Sam (Podcast Host)
did running a restaurant.
- [34:13]
Jeff Benda (Wild Game and Fish Expert)
Running a restaurant, yeah.
- [34:14]
Sam (Podcast Host)
Really?
- [34:14]
Jeff Benda (Wild Game and Fish Expert)
They're like, yeah, you should do some, like a wild game one. So I did, and they started selling out. And we were coming back from Bismarck. I remember Lucia was really little and we. She was sleeping in the back of the car. We were coming back from Bismarck. And Melissa, I said, oh, there's another class that just sold out. And she's like, that's neat. I wish there was a way we could figure out for you to do that full time. That'd be cool. And I heard my wife say, you should quit your job with benefits and go hunting and fishing all the time and just write stories about it. Yeah, get them in field and stream. Write recipes about it.
- [34:47]
Sam (Podcast Host)
Right.
- [34:47]
Jeff Benda (Wild Game and Fish Expert)
And so I. Three hour drive. She fell asleep. Lucia was asleep for three hours. I was making a business plan. And so for the first six months, I worked my regular 9 to 5 job. And then I Ubered here in Fargo, North Dakota, 40 to 60 hours a week, in addition to my regular four hours.
- [35:05]
Sam (Podcast Host)
Oh, my gosh.
- [35:06]
Jeff Benda (Wild Game and Fish Expert)
Saving up because I wasn't going to borrow money to start a business. Right. I didn't want to put that kind of pressure on. On my family. And I was always going to have enough. And so I saved up, quit my job, started doing it, and it didn't go well. It was a struggle. I had to build my own website, had to learn how to do it all by myself. And then, you know, freelance writing, outdoor industry. Not a ton of money.
- [35:33]
Sam (Podcast Host)
No, it's not.
- [35:34]
Jeff Benda (Wild Game and Fish Expert)
It's really not. And I was doing a lot of it, but there wasn't a ton of money. So for two and a half years I still drove a ton of Uber, like probably full time job Uber.
- [35:46]
Sam (Podcast Host)
Yeah.
- [35:47]
Jeff Benda (Wild Game and Fish Expert)
In addition to just building things up and then just over a year ago, another big website redesign and then it took off.
- [35:58]
Sam (Podcast Host)
Yeah.
- [35:59]
Jeff Benda (Wild Game and Fish Expert)
And then I was able to go onto a, an ad network because Google Ads just doesn't pay.
- [36:07]
Sam (Podcast Host)
Yeah.
- [36:07]
Jeff Benda (Wild Game and Fish Expert)
So I was able to go on a, on an ad network that pays mediavine. And it now I can make a living doing it. So I travel the country doing cooking demonstrations. I was at the Bismarck sports show last month doing a cooking demonstration. I've been to Texas, Minnesota, you know, I sort of travel doing those. And then I do, I run the website and make money from the ads on the website. And I have, you know, a couple corporate partnerships. I don't do a ton of those because it's. And then now I'm writing a cookbook.
- [36:39]
Sam (Podcast Host)
Yeah.
- [36:39]
Jeff Benda (Wild Game and Fish Expert)
And that's probably the super exciting thing that's happening right now.
- [36:42]
Sam (Podcast Host)
Yeah. So I want to get, I want to get into the cookbook next. But how many. So you're doing a recipe every week that gets emailed out?
- [36:49]
Jeff Benda (Wild Game and Fish Expert)
Yep, I send that Tuesday morning. If you subscribe. If you go to wildgame of fish.com they'll have like a. Subscribe for the newsletter. I send out a new recipe every Tuesday morning and then kind of with a little. Might have a hunting story or a fishing story or just a reflection on what it's like to be a dad of a 10 year old.
- [37:06]
Sam (Podcast Host)
Yeah.
- [37:07]
Jeff Benda (Wild Game and Fish Expert)
And then I just send out one every Tuesday morning. And then so I'm just, I'm publishing a new recipe. So there's a few, there's. I think we're Getting close to 300 recipes now on the, on the website.
- [37:18]
Sam (Podcast Host)
Yeah.
- [37:18]
Jeff Benda (Wild Game and Fish Expert)
And there's fish, waterfowl, upland bird and venison. And then there's a lot of 30 minute recipes, slow cooker recipes. It might say kid friendly. You know, it's kind of all kind of broken up for sure. Soup, stews, steaks, burgers, whatever.
- [37:32]
Sam (Podcast Host)
Yeah.
- [37:32]
Jeff Benda (Wild Game and Fish Expert)
So it's super easy to search for, find what you're looking for.
- [37:35]
Sam (Podcast Host)
Yeah. Which is awesome. I mean to have that much, you know, variation in the recipes is awesome. So like, I mean, if you're listening to this. Regardless of the pursuit that you're after, like, there's something for you to be able to go.
- [37:45]
Jeff Benda (Wild Game and Fish Expert)
Yeah, it's always something. And even, you know, I, I'm based out of here in North Dakota, but I've been blessed to be able to get invited down to. To Texas and do so. There's even like, redfish, flounder, sea trout. That's a couple other additional fish recipes that you can't find here in North Dakota that are on there as well.
- [37:59]
Sam (Podcast Host)
Yeah, yeah. And then we were talking about right before we started recording is like, I think the biggest thing that people get intimidated by when it comes to cooking wild game is they think you have to do an elaborate meal, like if they buy a cookbook or whatever. And the biggest thing is keeping it simple. Like. Yeah. You know, finding a couple recipes that you can nail every time. That's really all you need for sure to start and get confident making, like, oh, I can make this taste good every single time. And then you can get, you know, a little more adventurous if you want to. But most time you don't have to,
- [38:35]
Jeff Benda (Wild Game and Fish Expert)
like, look at the, the curry that we did. That is a 25 minute start to finish.
- [38:41]
Sam (Podcast Host)
Yeah, that.
- [38:42]
Jeff Benda (Wild Game and Fish Expert)
That is. That takes 25 minutes.
- [38:44]
Sam (Podcast Host)
Yeah. And it was.
- [38:45]
Jeff Benda (Wild Game and Fish Expert)
And if you're a real novice. Yeah, it might take you 30 minutes.
- [38:49]
Sam (Podcast Host)
Right, right.
- [38:49]
Jeff Benda (Wild Game and Fish Expert)
I mean, if you're, like, intimidated. But it is so super easy. It's all in one pan. Not. Not a lot of hard cleanup. I mean, this is. That's prep time, cook time, literally 30 minutes. And you know, that, that's what I try to strive for. Because I think we do get intimidated by. What, you know, we open up a bunch of these wild game cookbooks or fish cookbooks, and there's a million different ingredients in there that you may not be able to find. So the vast majority, not all of them on the website, but the vast majority are things that you're going to be able to find at your local. The store. Grocery store, no matter where you live.
- [39:30]
Sam (Podcast Host)
Yeah, right.
- [39:31]
Jeff Benda (Wild Game and Fish Expert)
The upcoming cookbook coming out this fall. Every single ingredient, every single one, you have to be able to find at a Walmart in North Dakota.
- [39:41]
Sam (Podcast Host)
Yeah.
- [39:42]
Jeff Benda (Wild Game and Fish Expert)
Whether you're in Dickinson, Minot, Grand Forks, Jamestown, or Fargo, if you can't find it there. And I have ch. I'm double checking every single ingredient to see. I go on the website and I see, like, can you find the ingredient there? Because I want people to be able to get the ingredients easily.
- [39:59]
Sam (Podcast Host)
Right, right.
- [40:01]
Jeff Benda (Wild Game and Fish Expert)
And then, and then it's all 30 minutes or less or every recipe in the cookbook. It's either 30 minutes or less or you can throw in a slow cooker and it's in the morning and it's done by the time you get home. And there's only a couple exceptions. I think we talked about that earlier. There's a pickled northern pike, which is very, very popular on the website.
- [40:19]
Sam (Podcast Host)
Yep.
- [40:20]
Jeff Benda (Wild Game and Fish Expert)
I love that recipe. And then a goose pastrami that we do a ton of Canada geese. And so we turn a lot of way better than in our family. That is the biggest preference over goose jerky for sure.
- [40:35]
Sam (Podcast Host)
Is this goose pastrami. Yeah.
- [40:37]
Jeff Benda (Wild Game and Fish Expert)
Because I love Reuben sandwiches.
- [40:38]
Sam (Podcast Host)
Yeah.
- [40:39]
Jeff Benda (Wild Game and Fish Expert)
My mother in law, who does not eat wild game, she'll tell you she doesn't eat wild game. Loves that goose pastrami. Absolutely loves it.
- [40:47]
Sam (Podcast Host)
Yeah.
- [40:47]
Jeff Benda (Wild Game and Fish Expert)
And I think, you know, what you were getting down to is when I prep, when I do cooking demonstrations, a lot of times I do have just a venison steak.
- [40:55]
Sam (Podcast Host)
Yep.
- [40:56]
Jeff Benda (Wild Game and Fish Expert)
It's not even back strap. I will take the top round or the bottom round that everybody else turns into jerky.
- [41:02]
Sam (Podcast Host)
Yep.
- [41:02]
Jeff Benda (Wild Game and Fish Expert)
And I'll go over it with a jacquard meat tenderizer. It's got those needles.
- [41:06]
Sam (Podcast Host)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [41:08]
Jeff Benda (Wild Game and Fish Expert)
And I will go over it with that. And I usually do that when I'm processing before I even freeze it. And I will just take that steak out, whether it's on the grill or the cast iron. And I'll do this at cooking demonstrations, literally on like on a portable stove in a cast iron skillet. And I will cook it, like, get a nice crust on it. And it's seasoned with salt and pepper.
- [41:29]
Sam (Podcast Host)
Okay. And I'm.
- [41:30]
Jeff Benda (Wild Game and Fish Expert)
Because I'm trying to prove to people that this is all you need to do. It's salt and pepper. There's no marinade. And we're going to cook it to medium rare.
- [41:38]
Sam (Podcast Host)
Yep.
- [41:38]
Jeff Benda (Wild Game and Fish Expert)
And then we're going to take it out and we're going to let it rest and just get happy with itself. Right. And, and. And then we're gonna slice it thin.
- [41:48]
Sam (Podcast Host)
Yep.
- [41:49]
Jeff Benda (Wild Game and Fish Expert)
And serve it maybe a little bit more. Sprinkle of salt and pepper. And people are like, this is not deer.
- [41:55]
Sam (Podcast Host)
Yeah. Every time.
- [41:56]
Jeff Benda (Wild Game and Fish Expert)
I don't believe you.
- [41:57]
Sam (Podcast Host)
Would you say that's one of the biggest.
- [41:59]
Jeff Benda (Wild Game and Fish Expert)
It's changed them.
- [42:00]
Sam (Podcast Host)
Like, they're like this. Okay.
- [42:02]
Jeff Benda (Wild Game and Fish Expert)
Yes. If we would have. If we would have been women will come up to me at the cooking demonstration. They'll try it and they're like, if my Husband would have been. If we would have been cooking steaks like this 20 years ago, I. I would have been like, this would have completely changed our lives. And that is my goal. Like, when I can change that for someone. Just. Just a matter of how you cook it, on how you perceive that protein. And then that translates to, I want to go hunting more.
- [42:33]
Sam (Podcast Host)
Yeah.
- [42:33]
Jeff Benda (Wild Game and Fish Expert)
Now she's like, okay, I'm going to get a deer tag this year. That was the biggest thing out in Bismarck. A lady came up to me and she's like, I'm going to go back and start deer hunting again.
- [42:42]
Sam (Podcast Host)
Because if I can cook a steak
- [42:44]
Jeff Benda (Wild Game and Fish Expert)
and it's like this, now that I know how, yeah, I'm going to do it and I'm going to go out and get a deer. And I'm like, that is awesome.
- [42:50]
Sam (Podcast Host)
Would you say that's like the biggest miss that people do when cooking, especially deer venison is overcooking 100%.
- [42:57]
Jeff Benda (Wild Game and Fish Expert)
Yeah, absolutely. 100%.
- [42:59]
Sam (Podcast Host)
Because it's aging too. Yeah, Aging too.
- [43:02]
Jeff Benda (Wild Game and Fish Expert)
I think one of the big things, you know, think about this. You shoot an animal and then there's a time period where now it's. It's going into rigor.
- [43:13]
Sam (Podcast Host)
Yeah, right. Okay.
- [43:15]
Jeff Benda (Wild Game and Fish Expert)
And we all know, like, based on. If anybody watch like NCIS or the cb, you know, any of these kinds of shows where there's a dead body and the guy comes at the, you know, the guy comes up and he's like, well, how long? Based on rigor. How long this guy has been dead for this long?
- [43:29]
Sam (Podcast Host)
Yeah.
- [43:30]
Jeff Benda (Wild Game and Fish Expert)
Okay. All animals go into rigor. Doesn't matter if it's a bird, even a fish, but a deer, elk, if you think about your timing and when you're processing, you're a deer camp, you're in the field, you shoot the animal. Now, six hours later, whatever, eight hours late, it's in full rigor. Those muscle that's gotten super, super tight. Right.
- [43:49]
Sam (Podcast Host)
Constricted.
- [43:50]
Jeff Benda (Wild Game and Fish Expert)
And then you freeze it at that moment.
- [43:53]
Sam (Podcast Host)
Yep.
- [43:54]
Jeff Benda (Wild Game and Fish Expert)
And then you take it out of the freezer and you start to thaw it out and you're like, ah, this is the toughest meat I've ever had. That, that ruddy old elk, that. Gosh, that bull. Elk, that's just. You can't eat those things.
- [44:06]
Sam (Podcast Host)
Yeah.
- [44:06]
Jeff Benda (Wild Game and Fish Expert)
Well, when did you freeze it? And I'll ask people that. And time and time again, whether they're in Colorado, they're in Montana, here in North Dakota, whatever it is, they froze that thing when it was in full rigor.
- [44:17]
Sam (Podcast Host)
Yep.
- [44:18]
Jeff Benda (Wild Game and Fish Expert)
And then they Took it out and they tried to cook it right away. Just letting it a. You. You know it. This doesn't have to be like a huge thing. You don't have to age front shoulders like front quarters because most of the you're going to braze that or turn it into burger. But your hind quarters, your what's going to be steaks and roasts. Taking the time to break that down. And if you don't have the. I don't have a walk in cooler. I don't. I put them in. I take the cuts. The individual cut. Like the top round.
- [44:50]
Sam (Podcast Host)
Yeah.
- [44:51]
Jeff Benda (Wild Game and Fish Expert)
The bottom round, the eye of rounds. I put them in a vacuum seal bag and instead of throwing them in the freezer. So I'll vacuum seal them. And then instead. You can't do this with Ziploc. It has to be a vacuum seal. Okay. And then I wet age them. So instead of throwing them immediately in the freezer, I put them in the refrigerator for four or five days.
- [45:12]
Sam (Podcast Host)
Sure.
- [45:12]
Jeff Benda (Wild Game and Fish Expert)
And then I put them in the freezer. Because now you've had that time for wet aging.
- [45:16]
Sam (Podcast Host)
Gotcha.
- [45:17]
Jeff Benda (Wild Game and Fish Expert)
So a lot of time I will personally dry age for five to seven days. But it depends on what's going on. If I'm leaving town to go on another hunt or I've got something for work. Like, I might not be able to do that. But what I prefer to do is if we have a deer, antelope, elk, dry age the hindquarter for five to seven days and then break it down and then wet age it for another.
- [45:39]
Sam (Podcast Host)
Sure.
- [45:39]
Jeff Benda (Wild Game and Fish Expert)
Four or five, six.
- [45:40]
Sam (Podcast Host)
And allow that meat to relax.
- [45:42]
Jeff Benda (Wild Game and Fish Expert)
This makes such a difference on tenderness.
- [45:44]
Sam (Podcast Host)
Yeah, that's a very good tip. So now dive into, like, I gotta hear more about the cookbook that you're working on.
- [45:51]
Jeff Benda (Wild Game and Fish Expert)
Sure.
- [45:52]
Sam (Podcast Host)
What was the inspiration behind it? And like, why have you gone like kind of so fanatical to do it like this specific way?
- [46:01]
Jeff Benda (Wild Game and Fish Expert)
My entire. This. These last few years of. Of building the website. If you go to the end of every single waterfowl recipe, venison recipe, it says at the end of every waterfowl recipe as it says, if you want it like a duck recipe, it says if you want to come duck hunting in North Dakota, check out the game and North Dakota Game and Fish Department website and there's a link to it.
- [46:22]
Sam (Podcast Host)
Yep.
- [46:23]
Jeff Benda (Wild Game and Fish Expert)
If you want to come deer hunting in North Dakota, here's a link to it. And I know a lot of people aren't. North Dakotans are like, why do that? Please don't tell people. We don't need more hunters here, right?
- [46:34]
Sam (Podcast Host)
Yeah.
- [46:35]
Jeff Benda (Wild Game and Fish Expert)
But I love North Dakota hunting. It's why I'm here, it's why I live here, is the outdoor opportunities. And I want to share those with people. And so I'm writing this cookbook. It's really a tribute to North Dakota. It's a wild game and fish cookbook, but all the species, hunting, fishing, it's something that you can find in North Dakota. Every single photograph is taken here in North Dakota. I'm doing all the food photography. Our mutual friend Seth Owens from Pheasants Forever is doing all the wildlife photography and landscape photography. And I just, it's my, it's really just my. Like a love letter to North Dakota. Yeah, I just, you know, like when, when we read a lot about Theater Roosevelt in this house, I got a lot of Theodore Roosevelt books. I tell a lot of Theodore Roosevelt stories. And my daughter has heard those and she's grown up with that. So much so that she wants to. Her first North Dakota deer hunting experience. She wants it to be in that same area of western North Dakota where, where Theater Roosevelt hunted deer. She wants to have. She wants to share that experience and the amazing things for conservation. You know, I'm, I'm on the North Dakota board for backcountry hunters and anglers. Conservation is so integral part of this journey with me and public land access. And so just really diving into ex. Sharing those opportunities for people in this cookbook. So again, all the recipes, I want them to be, to open it up to whether you're a hunter or a fisherman hunter, an angler or married to one or, you know, you're friends with one is being. Maybe you're just, you were gifted wild game. Maybe you're just in a family where you, you don't hunt and fish, but you're always gifted that.
- [48:42]
Sam (Podcast Host)
Yeah.
- [48:42]
Jeff Benda (Wild Game and Fish Expert)
And you want to know how to use it. This cookbook is. Are simple recipes. It's literally every single one of them 30 minutes or less, or put them in a slow cooker and it's done. I mean, that's, that's what parents want. I mean, you're a parent of a one and a half year old. I'm a parent of a ten year old. And there's lots of activities. You're going to have them. But there's, there's lots of things.
- [49:06]
Sam (Podcast Host)
And I only have one.
- [49:07]
Jeff Benda (Wild Game and Fish Expert)
I got friends with three kids, four kids, five kids.
- [49:09]
Sam (Podcast Host)
Yeah.
- [49:10]
Jeff Benda (Wild Game and Fish Expert)
You know, they want a simple list of ingredients. They want to be able to put this together, but they want it to be good.
- [49:16]
Sam (Podcast Host)
Yeah.
- [49:17]
Jeff Benda (Wild Game and Fish Expert)
And we've all had really crappy wild game. We really have an overcooked steak, pheasant in a slow cooker with cream of mushroom soup, which can be lovely, but not every time.
- [49:29]
Sam (Podcast Host)
Yeah.
- [49:30]
Jeff Benda (Wild Game and Fish Expert)
And you know, I just. If you can make that approachable for people and make them see it differently, like you can cook a pheasant if you treat it properly. You can cook it using your saint, your favorite chicken recipe. If you love this particular chicken recipe, you can do it with pheasant. You just have to treat it a little bit different and make some of those adjustments and cooking time and preparation. And I do that in this cookbook.
- [50:02]
Sam (Podcast Host)
Yeah.
- [50:02]
Jeff Benda (Wild Game and Fish Expert)
And it's also that every single ingredient
- [50:04]
Sam (Podcast Host)
again, can be bought.
- [50:06]
Jeff Benda (Wild Game and Fish Expert)
You can like, you can find it. You can. You're going to be able to find it at your local grocery store.
- [50:10]
Sam (Podcast Host)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, that's pretty awesome. So that'll come out this fall, correct?
- [50:16]
Jeff Benda (Wild Game and Fish Expert)
It's going to come out this fall. So it's going to be broken up into four different sections. So there's going to be pheasant and grouse section.
- [50:23]
Sam (Podcast Host)
Yes.
- [50:24]
Jeff Benda (Wild Game and Fish Expert)
You and I talked about this before. I wanted to be upland bird.
- [50:27]
Sam (Podcast Host)
Yeah.
- [50:28]
Jeff Benda (Wild Game and Fish Expert)
But guess what? You're not. When it's time to do a cookbook and you didn't get a turkey.
- [50:33]
Sam (Podcast Host)
Yeah. I didn't have the luck that Sam got. Right.
- [50:37]
Jeff Benda (Wild Game and Fish Expert)
So I didn't have turkey and I wasn't gonna cheat.
- [50:40]
Sam (Podcast Host)
Yep.
- [50:41]
Jeff Benda (Wild Game and Fish Expert)
And go get a store bought turkey.
- [50:43]
Sam (Podcast Host)
Yeah.
- [50:43]
Jeff Benda (Wild Game and Fish Expert)
So. And then partridge this year. I could not find them. I could not find them.
- [50:49]
Sam (Podcast Host)
Yep.
- [50:51]
Jeff Benda (Wild Game and Fish Expert)
You know, so I had to do pheasant and grouse. Those I can find.
- [50:55]
Sam (Podcast Host)
Yeah.
- [50:56]
Jeff Benda (Wild Game and Fish Expert)
And so there's a pheasant and grouse section, about 20 recipes for those, 20 fish recipes, 20 waterfowl recipes. We shoot a lot of ducks and geese.
- [51:06]
Sam (Podcast Host)
Yeah.
- [51:06]
Jeff Benda (Wild Game and Fish Expert)
Around here. And then venison. So it's really just that in that kind of overall, that overall just really summing up, these are recipes that have all been tested and approved by my wife and our daughter.
- [51:21]
Sam (Podcast Host)
Yep.
- [51:22]
Jeff Benda (Wild Game and Fish Expert)
And also then they're about to be sent out here in a couple weeks. These recipes to over a hundred recipe testers, to people that subscribe to the newsletter.
- [51:32]
Sam (Podcast Host)
Yeah.
- [51:33]
Jeff Benda (Wild Game and Fish Expert)
So if you want to be a recipe tester, that's a pretty cool experience. And you get a free cookbook at the end. So if anybody's out, out there listening and you want to be a recipe tester for this cookbook and get a free cookbook, you can go and subscribe@wildgamingfish.com to the weekly newsletter and then you'll have information on that you can sign up. Because I want, I want. I need to know that these work for everybody. For sure. You know, I want it to be literally, if you. Every recipe is given a letter grade and if it's not an A across the board, it will not go in the cookbook.
- [52:06]
Sam (Podcast Host)
And I have to use either redo it or.
- [52:09]
Jeff Benda (Wild Game and Fish Expert)
Yes.
- [52:09]
Sam (Podcast Host)
Yeah, sure. Yeah. I mean, that's pretty good quality control to be able to like, you know, have the confidence to go like the. All of these that are in the book are going to make people happy.
- [52:18]
Jeff Benda (Wild Game and Fish Expert)
Yes.
- [52:18]
Sam (Podcast Host)
And absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. Well, for anybody listening, be sure to go to Wild and game wildgamingfish.com and subscribe to the newsletter. Where else can people follow along on what you're doing and stay informed leading up to the cookbook launch?
- [52:33]
Jeff Benda (Wild Game and Fish Expert)
Yeah, I'm on Instagram, Wild Game and Fish or the website wildgaminfish.com those are probably the easiest ways to follow me.
- [52:42]
Sam (Podcast Host)
Perfect. Yeah. Well, we'll put in the show notes, we'll have links to the recipes that we made, the turkey before this podcast, and then obviously the website. But all of you out there, go take care of the wild game that you're catching and shooting and doing whatever, and make sure that you are cooking better recipes. So, Jeff, thanks for hopping on with us today.
- [53:02]
Jeff Benda (Wild Game and Fish Expert)
Thank you. Really an honor to be on this podcast.
- [53:04]
Sam (Podcast Host)
I was really happy to have you on here and just talk about that connection from the show, literally from field to table.
- [53:10]
Jeff Benda (Wild Game and Fish Expert)
Yeah, thank you.
- [53:16]
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