Betty Lives!

Game Cookbook

Geraldine Steindler

1965

A truly unusual book by an author whose other culinary work is The Shooters Bible Cookbook.  There are tips and preparations for absolutely everything that humans have ever been able to shoot, trap or hook including doves, pigeons, coot, beaver, muskrat (”a dark-meated bonus from the trapper”), possum and porcupine.  She draws the line at crow which she believes make good target practice but are not fit for consumption.

Steindler is not a freak who lives in the woods and weaves her own blankets, she’s a sophisticated cook with a passion for hunting.  Although the bio does mention that her “arsenal now consists of shotguns, handguns and several target and hunting rifles”,  she writes articulately and possesses a refined culinary sense.

I’m trying to ease game into my kids’ diet and so far they’re ok with rabbit, duck and quail as long as I lie to them a little. “It’s just a mini-chicken!” The Quail with Cherry Sauce is a fairly standard preparation and I happen to like fruit sauces with game.  The quail is seasoned and then browned on all sides in butter and finished in a hot (400 degree) oven for 15 minutes.  The sauce is made by de-glazing the pan first with  1/2 cup veal stock then 1/2 glass port.  While the liquids reduce shredded lemon peel is added and after about ten minutes you whisk in 3 Tbl red currant jelly, 1/2 cup sour cherry compote and 1 Tbl lemon juice.  At this point I reduced the sauce a little further so it would thicken:

Although it didn’t call for finishing the sauce with a swirl of cold butter, in retrospect this would have softened the taste in a very good way.  As it was, it was nice but slightly too sweet.  I served it with wild rice that I had cooked with sauteed onions and porcini mushrooms and the combination was perfect.