Spencer Neuharth tests to see if bleeding walleye yields a better filet than keeping the fish alive.
How do you make a backstrap or morel taste better? Like most things that you shoot, catch, or harvest, there’s a direct link between how you care for your protein and how it tastes. Walleye, the backstrap or morel of the river, is no exception. One thing that walleye anglers disagree on is whether to bleed fish. I’ve always been in the “not to bleed” and “not to kill” camp. In the past, walleye that I threw on ice never seemed to be an...
If you keep up with the trends in culinary culture, there is a good chance you’ve come across some mention of koji-aged meat. The widespread claim is that in three days you can recreate the flavors of meat that has been dry-aged for 45 days. I wanted to challenge that statement by testing it on wild game. I took some venison backstrap and rubbed it with koji for 72 hours to determine if this aging hack lives up to the hype. In English, koji is...
Imagine a proud new dog owner bragging up their new pup—a hound like Mingus or a retriever like Snort. “My dog has a better nose than a grizzly bear,” he or she boasts. Should you believe them? After all, from the outside, a dog’s and a bear’s noses look very similar. Humans have bred dog specifically to trail scent. A bloodhound, for example, can detect odors several times more acutely than a run-of-the-mill pound puppy. But can a dog out-sniff...
