Cuisine
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A GUIDE
TO THE WILDER
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SIDE OF LOUISIANA
T H E S T. F R A N C I SV I L L E
F R O M T H E S WA M P F LO O R PA N T RY
Oh, Deer
FIVE CHEFS SHARE CREATIVE TAKES ON VENISON
By Jordan LaHaye Photo by Stacy Landers.
Chef John Folse
When John Folse speaks of his childhood, he describes the St. James Parish bayous he grew up in as “the swamp floor pantry” and a “storeroom of plenty”. “We never, ever thought about food, because there was so much,” he said. “It was all over the place.” At as early as six years old, Folse remembers being let out of school for the holidays and heading straight for the swamp with his cousins. “We’d go into a little family camp that was very very simple, and we’d stay there for two weeks or a month by ourselves, deer hunting. We just had to be home for Christmas, our mama said.” Eating exclusively what they grew, farmed, and killed, Folse said that his family never wasted a single piece of any animal. There were family recipes designed to cater to each part of the deer—they’d braise the tough cuts, throw the kidneys in a stew, sautée the brain for break40
N O V 2 1 // C O U N T R Y R O A D S M A G . C O M
CUISINE
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FOOD AND WINE
IN THE WILD
CREATING
COPPER VINE’S WINE
FESTIVAL RETURNS
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killed my first deer on my sixteenth birthday. As the kind of kid who named caterpillars, who tamed the stray cats from our barn and cried at the sight of blood—I hadn’t previously had much interest in this particular rite of passage. My dad had always found ways to include me in the tradition, though. He’d bring me on “camera hunts,” setting up early in the morning on the deer stand, where we’d watch the forest come alive—warmed by a space heater, snacking on beef jerky and powdered donuts. But on that January morning, something clicked. The little buck looked right at me, my dad whispered encouragements into my ear, and I surprised myself by pulling the trigger. The deer ran, straight over the nearby bluff. Quietly we climbed down from the stand and made our way down the hillside—both of us wholly prepared for a fullon tracking expedition. And then we saw it: I’d shot well and true, straight through the heart. That day is one of my favorite memories spent with my dad. We pulled the deer up the hill together, and back at the camp he showed me how to clean it. We celebrated with lunch at The Myrtles, then went home victorious—one of the best backstrap dinners I’d ever have waiting in our future. And just like that, I was part of it. My story joined the tapestry of first kills that in so many ways shape the individual histories— spanning generations—of growing up in this place, of harvesting and tasting, of sharing and storytelling. When speaking recently with Chef John Folse, one of our region’s top authorities on—and proponents of—wild game cuisine, he said “When I think of myself as a Louisiana chef that brings stories around the world, the best stories I can tell are not about my
fast. As a chef in an increasingly-mass produced world, Folse said he still craves those dishes of his childhood. “But unless I killed the deer myself, those parts were hard to find. People just throw them away.” He shared many of these recipes in his wildly-popular 2007 cookbook After the Hunt: Louisiana’s Authoritative Collection of Wild Game & Game Fish Cookery. “The game book has absolutely been the most sought after book of mine,” he said. “It was the story I wanted to make sure we brought into generations to come. This is the foundation we stand on in Louisiana cooking.” His Deer Bombs recipe, created for a group of firemen in search of an easy, quick way to use their game, is now a regional favorite and can even be found as an appetizer on local menus. “You just pound out some cuts of meat—the best of the venison, pounded out, tender—
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restaurant in NOLA, they’re not about my catering company in Baton Rouge. They’re about the roots of our cooking. How blessed we are in this utopia of plenty in South Louisiana.” Folse’s project, for decades, has been to encourage a return to the culinary roots that shaped Louisiana’s distinctive cuisine—a return to the land we’ve inherited. The path to encouraging more wild game cooking, he’s long held, is laden with creativity—moving past the generic ground meat and sausage typically made from deer killed today. “Growing up as a young boy in the swamp in the 1950s, the whole animal was a treasure trove of opportunity, just a treasure trove,” he said. “There is a place on the table for all primal cuts.” In recent years, as consumers have become more wary of industrial-scale factory farming’s environmental impacts, treatment of animals, and lack of transparency—the move to sourcing local has coincided with an uptick in hunting across the nation. Since 2020, this trend has only accelerated as Americans sought out new hobbies, particularly those that brought them outdoors. Speaking with five chefs—who each came to the deer stand from wildly different backgrounds—we delved into the versatile world of venison cuisine. For experienced outdoorsmen and new hunters alike (as well as for generous hunters’ lucky friends), we’ve curated a collection of recipes that bring Louisiana’s prized game to the table in forms both elegant and approachable, classic and surprising. As wild game food blogger Nathan Judice said in a recent interview: “Anyone can cook like this. You can use venison in pretty much anything you can imagine. It’s so versatile, and it’s so healthy. The possibilities are endless.”
and wrap it up in bacon with vegetables or cheese, all the things we love. It’s so simple, a little nothing recipe that really at the end of the day is what our cooking is all about: taking what we have in the moment and deciding how to eat it.” For a surprisingly simple, showstopping dish, Folse recommends roasting a rack of venison. “You have a small rack of tenderloin with the bones in, just roasted whole. I would serve that to a king.” And then of course, there’s the heart. “The heart is so underutilized,” he said. “People either throw it away or into a stew.” Since his book’s release, he said, his Stuffed Venison Heart has become one of the most popular dishes he makes. “You stuff the heart with a spicy venison sausage, then braise it in a cast iron skillet—it doesn’t get better than that.” jfolse.com.
