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Hunting Fits into Way of Life

October 25, 2010 - Next Saturday, before legal shooting time begins for Maine's regular firearm season on deer, diehard hunters will sneak through the woods in the dark, heading to an ambush spot by a well used deer trail.

This walk kicks off an annual ritual for another year, and yes, while standing in the predawn, waiting for the forest to settle after the approach, hunters savor the familiar forest smells and sounds as the eastern horizon slowly turns yellow ochre.

The whole deer-hunting experience rekindles memories of relatives and friends who have shared these moments -- some now passed away. If nothing else, the sport evokes traditions. Indeed, for the next month, Maine hunters will be getting 1) memories that last a lifetime or even generations, 2) exercise and 3) hopefully, a deer. Each whitetail can save a family $400 to $500 on the grocery bill.

I'm not a big Ted Nugent fan, but once on a television show, in his bombastic manner, he was debating an anti-hunting woman. Basically, he said that hunting created family traditions, provided great exercise in fresh air and supplied us with delicious, nutritious food.

"What part of that don't you get, lady?" Nugent asked sarcastically.

"Allen Afield" has run weekly since 1988, and another column of mine has appeared monthly in a magazine since January 1974. Occasionally, topics have included shooting critters, so readers might think that people opposed to hunting have called or written plenty to criticize me.

In all that time, though, only one person has contacted me, in an unsigned letter with no address. The lack of signature and address puzzled me, too, because the writer struck me as a thoughtful, intelligent soul.

That record of avoiding anti-hunting wrath fills me with pride, and in my humble opinion, two primary reasons contribute:

In the last 36 years, my columns and magazine articles have pounded at a concept. No one needs to kill or harass a critter for a hunting or fishing day to be successful, which I might add is a sincere thought.

A week or more may pass without shooting game and catching fish, particularly in deer hunting or in tarpon or Atlantic salmon fishing. In those times, though, sightings of wildlife, flora or other natural phenomena (geology, weather, etc.) offer entertainment and intrigue galore.

More importantly, my columns often capture the joys of eating game and fish as well as garden veggies and wild plants, which led to a cookbook, "Cooking Wild." It's difficult to criticize someone who uses fruits from nature and has documented that fact in a book full of personal recipes.

In my family, my parents, grandmothers, uncles, aunts and cousins ate seasonal wild foods back when it was a common occurrence, not a fad.

Once, when I was 7 years old, we had beefsteak for dinner, and to my youthful palate, it tasted rancid compared to the wild, almost garlicky flavor of venison. My complaint about a good cut of beef infuriated my father. Frozen and fresh venison stayed on the menu for 12 months -- the latter an integral part of our diet.

My family picked fiddleheads, multiple berry species, apples, plums and pears in season. As an adult, I have harvested mushrooms and myriad wild plants and roots.

For a change of pace with protein, we ate grouse, squirrels and maybe ducks in fall and rabbits in autumn and winter. Trout, pickerel, mackerel, white perch, clams and more fish foods also wound up as main dishes.

All these choices, including clams, came from our own hands. For awhile, we grew our own chickens, so about the only thing we bought was Maine lobster or shrimp or on rare occasions, beef, pork or lamb. I'm not sure why we never raised pigs, steers or lambs. Neighbors did.

Today, supermarkets offer farmed Atlantic salmon and West Coast wild salmon on a daily basis, but supermarket, sea-run salmon proved a rarity during my youth. I never ate Atlantic salmon until my 20s, and most of it came from trips to Quebec, but some were of Sheepscot origin.

Sometimes, my sojourns to Canadian rivers would produce upwards to 50 pounds of Atlantic salmon, so this fish and venison turned into a common food in my early adult life -- what a way to live.

In my early 20s, I traveled in Europe, and a point wowed me. Restaurants routinely served garden veggies, eggs and domestic livestock from farms down the road or even from gardens behind rural eateries. Wild fish and game also wound up on menus.

This lifestyle impressed me because my childhood way of life was alive and well in the Old World.

By KEN ALLEN, Portland Press Herald
October 24, 2010


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