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Lake Namekin

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Lake Namekin

Lake Namekin

Way up in Northern Minnesota, right on the border of Ontario, there is a cabin. There’s no electricity or water, just a cabin and an outhouse, built back when land could still be purchased inside of Voyageurs National Park. It’s owned by my girlfriend and her family, and it’s a summer tradition of theirs to take a week each summer and be together. This year I got to go with.

Cabin at lake namekin

The old, handmade cabin at Lake Namekin.

I was looking forward to spending some time relaxing and being off of the grid, but of course I get excited to go to a new patch of land during the growing season. The land is technically taiga, (sub-arctic coniferous forest) and a world of difference from the mostly deciduous land around the Twin Cities where I live.

wild juniper and wild blueberries

Blueberries and juniper like the same rocky habitat..

It’s also very rocky, there isn’t a lot of fertile looking land. That doesn’t mean that nothing grows up there, just the opposite, but it makes for an interesting foray if you’re used to hunting in a different area.

Suillus Pictus

Painted slippery jack-Suillus pictus

We’re smack dab in the middle of chanterelle season, so I knew I might see some up there in the pine, and I did, but nothing to really write home about. There was enough to garnish a couple slices of beef one evening though.

Chanterelles at Lake Namekin

Chanterelles

What there was a lot of was berries. Blueberries, dew berries, raspberries, red currants. The blueberries were the ones that were ever present, and what we spent a whole day hunting for on a little rock they call “blueberry island”. With the birds, bears, and other creatures there’s plenty of berry competition, so it took some work, but they were there.

Wild Blueberries

On the right: lowbush blueberry, Vaccinium angustifolium

The provisions at the cabin were, provisions you might find at a cabin, but we did have a nice surplus of bacon.

Cooking bacon at the cabin

Everyone loves bacon, and bacon fat.

I made sure to save all the bacon fat for something, which turned out to be a cake with our wild blueberries we had for breakfast one morning. Here’s the recipe.

Wild Blueberry-Bacon Fat Cake

Wild Blueberry-Bacon Fat Cake
Print Recipe
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Wild Blueberry-Bacon Fat Cornbread

A basic recipe made from stuff you might have camping, cornmeal, maple syrup, wild berries, and herbs. It's excellent still warm, slathered with butter. Yield: one nine inch cast iron pan, enough to feed nine people a serving or two
Prep Time20 mins
Cook Time45 mins
Course: Breakfast, Snack
Cuisine: American
Keyword: Bacon Fat, Wild blueberries

Ingredients

  • 4 cups fine corn flour
  • 1 teaspoon Baking powder
  • 2 cups rendered bacon fat chilled
  • 1.5 cups wild blueberries raspberries, or whatever else you're picking
  • 1/4 cup maple syrup honey or sugar
  • 3 farm eggs or regular large eggs
  • 1 tablespoon fresh chopped rosemary thyme, or another herb of your choice. (optional)
  • Room temperature unsalted butter for serving

Instructions

  • Preheat the oven to 325. Liberally grease a cast iron skillet (A paper towel used to wipe out the jar of bacon fat worked great for me). In a bowl, mix the cornmeal and the bacon fat with a fork until just combined.
  • In a separate bowl, whisk the eggs with the maple syrup until pale yellow and doubled in volume, about 5-10 minutes. Fold the egg mixture into the cornmeal, then fold in the rosemary, taste the mixture for seasoning, and adjust if needed.
  • Gently fold in the berries, then Pour the mixture into the greased pan, smooth out the top, and bake for 25 minutes, or until golden brown. If the cake gets browned before a cake tester comes out clean in the middle, turn off the oven and let it sit in there to finish cooking with the residual heat.

Notes

You can substitute premade pancake mix for the dry ingredients in this recipe. 

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Comments

  1. Frank

    August 29, 2015 at 12:38 pm

    It looks lovely up there, reminding me of Maine. Look forward to visiting sometime. I’ll make sure to bring the bacon

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Tres Leches soaked in candy cap milk was a fun var Tres Leches soaked in candy cap milk was a fun variation I did on the house dessert of a little restaurant I was at for a time. 

Don’t be surprised if you smell like maple syrup a few hours after eating it. Using ground dried golden chanterelles is another variation that’s on my list to try. 

Link in bio to see how to make your own. 

#candycaps #treslechescake #myteethfellout #wildmushrooms #wildfoodlove
ARISE #fungimancer #frostbite #morels #tisthes ARISE 

 #fungimancer 
#frostbite #morels #tistheseason #mushroomhunting #winter #offseasontraining
Big thanks🙏 to all of you who showed your suppo Big thanks🙏 to all of you who showed your support with the first line of spirits @ida_graves_distillery and I collaborated on. 

Brock did a great job wrangling the wild things, and we have plenty of fun ideas in store (think aging nocino in barrels, new flavor combos, etc). If you’re in the Twin Cities and still need some, the amaro is #soldout but @ombibulousmn has nocino, and should have the spruce  liquor (goes down like pine gin) soon. Thank you!

#distillery #foragedcocktails #nocino #craftspirits #drinkatree #mnspirits #smallbatch #godscountry
Let’s talk roadkill. Honestly, roadkill is too s Let’s talk roadkill. Honestly, roadkill is too specific a term for me—I don’t limit myself to vehicular-harvested meat. 

However you feel about the topic, grab some popcorn and head over to the comment section on my blog (link in bio) for the 🔥personal stories from readers have shared from around the world. 

There’s the kid who brought home a nutria after school, a wife getting 4 deer with the same car, a train hitting a herd of elk, a bear named squish, living in a house with weasels, and more. 

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Sam Thayer dropped 25 lbs of his highbush cranberr Sam Thayer dropped 25 lbs of his highbush cranberry cultivars (3 types!) on me before the last snowfall and I honestly don’t even know where to start after processing them. I’d already made jams and hot sauce already and I have enough for a year. 😅

Great time to practice the cold-juice which ensures the juice isn’t bitter. 

Anyone else have any ideas? 

You can still find some on the shrubs if the birds didn’t get them up by the north shore. 

#highbushcranberry #winterforaging #birdberries #sweetnectar #foragerproblems #juiceme #embarassmentofriches #wildfoodlove
100% wild candy bars. I don’t usually make raw v 100% wild candy bars. I don’t usually make raw vegan snacks, but when I read about Euell Gibbon’s wild hackberry candy bars I had to try them. The  originals were just crushed hackberries and hickory nuts, but, I’ve read that Euell grew to dislike the crunch of hackberry seeds later in life. 

Here’s the thing though, if you sift the hackberry flour, you get a fun texture, with no worries about cracking a tooth. 

These are equal parts ground hackberries, dried wild blueberries, and hickory nuts, with a splash of maple syrup to bind.

The end product is a shelf stable, nutrient-packed bite filled with protein, carbohydrates, fats and natural sugars infinitely adaptable to your local landscape.

The texture is chewy and nougat-like, and now I’m curious to see how they’d perform baked in recipes that use frangipane or almond paste. 

#euellgibbons #energybars #hackberry #crushin #paleobreakfast #tradionalfood #wildfoodlove #rawfoods
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