HUNTING The author’s wife Julia Johnson began canning wild game meat one fall when her freezer broke and she had to do something with a blacktail the family had just harvested. While the process is time-consuming, the results in the form of long-lasting shelf-stable stored food is quite worthwhile. (JULIA JOHNSON)
What’s Good For The Gander, And Other Game Canning geese, deer and more not only tenderizes the meat, but makes for long-term shelf-stable food. By MD Johnson
“Y
ou know what?” I said to my wife, Julia. “No, what,” she replied hesitantly, understandably nervous of my ambiguous lead-in after 28 years together. “You know how you introduced me to canned venison back when we first met?” I said. That, for those of you with no reason to know, would have been in 1993.
“I do,” she said. “Well, what if we were to can those goose breasts I have in the freezer? There’s a dozen or more from this last late season. Shouldn’t that work just like your canned venison?” And so, with that simple question, we launched ourselves into yet another culinary experiment, this one involving wildfowl, kitchen time and pressure canners. Spoiler alert: It was incredible. When I first ate Julie’s canned
venison – blacktail, if you’re keeping score – almost 30 years ago, I thought it was absolutely perfect. But goose? Goose, especially older birds, can be notoriously tough; however, pressure-can that same ol’ gander for 90 minutes at 10 pounds, and what was tire tread becomes cutwith-a-fork tender. Truthfully? Other than a whole mallard split down the back and grilled to perfection over charcoal, not propane, I’d much rather eat canned fowl than have it nwsportsmanmag.com | JANUARY 2022
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