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FORAGER | CHEF

Award-winning chef, author and forager Alan Bergo. Food is all around you.

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Venison

cooked venison or deer ribs with antlers on a board
I love venison, and I cook a lot of it. My selection here is different hunting sites that specialize in it though: I work primarily with off-cuts, organs, cured meats, and things off the beaten path.

You can find backstrap recipes anywhere. If you're new here, make sure to try your hand at Venison Bacon. If you're adventurous, try some smoked kidneys or learn how to work with deer trotters.

Wild Fennel Venison Chorizo

foraged wild Fennel Venison Salami

I’ve been making a lot of charcuterie using UMAi DRY casings lately, and, after a month, my first one is done: a chorizo-style salami made from elk flavored with wild fennel seeds. It’s been years since I made salami, but after my first bite of these, It’s going to be a regular thing.  Making salami…

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Smoked Shank Stew with Huitlacoche and Tepary Beans

Venison stew with huitlacoche and tepary beans

Venison shanks (any shanks, really) make great soup and stews, and this one, with Mexican flavors of dried beans and huitlacoche, is fantastic. Originally I was trying to recreate a soup my mother described to me from a trip to Mazatlan, but, instead of the brothy soup I intended, it turned into a more stick-to-your…

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Venison Biltong

Elk Biltong sliced on a board

If you like making charcuterie at home, or even just like a good bag of jerky, you’ll love biltong. Just think beef jerky, but softer, more tender.  If you’re not familiar, biltong is made by cutting meat into slabs about an inch thick, seasoning, with black pepper and coriander, and allowing to dry for 1-2…

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Venison Tasso Ham

Smoked Venison Tasso Ham

Venison tasso may not exactly be a traditional charcuterie, but if you like spicy, smoked ham, you’ll love it. If you’re not familiar (it’s kind of an obscure ham) tasso is a smoked creole ham that, from my experience, typically has a spicy rub of paprika and cayenne, among a bunch of other things. When…

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Boneless Venison Ribs

Boneless venison ribs

  Rib meat has to be one of the most underrated cuts of venison. Typically it will go in the grind pile after getting a thorough trim, or, as I see more often, left on the carcass for the cayotes. Today, I have for you, solid proof that deer ribs make for great eating, and…

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Venison Liver Pate

Venison liver pate recipe

Looking for a good pate recipe for venison liver (or any liver for that matter?) here you go, this is my go-to. This is basically the same recipe I was taught by one of my old chefs, who learned it from a master butcher from Rome (Chef Fillipo Caffari). Mostly we would make it with…

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Balsamic Blue Cheese Sauce for Venison, Game and Vegetables

Venison steak tips with balsamic blue cheese sauce

Chocolatey and thick, shimmering with sugar, fat and funk, Balsamic-Blue Cheese sauce is one of the great sauces in my secret stash I bring out occasionally. I learned the sauce working under chef William Salvadore from Milan, and it was love at first spoonful. The restaurant he owned was an Italian-inspired American steakhouse concept, and…

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Venison-Bear Fat Nduja

Venison Nduja salami with bear fat (20)

I’m a charcuterie freak: if it’s cured, salted, smoked, aged, potentially strange and delicious, I’m on board. Nduja, a little known spreadable salami from Calabria that’s been a chef secret for years now checks a lot of those boxes. I had my first taste of it at a dinner by Chef Wyatt Evans at his…

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Alan Bergo
Morels: the only wild mushroom I count by the each Morels: the only wild mushroom I count by the each instead of the pound. 

Good day today, although my Twin Cities spots seem a full two weeks behind from the late spring. 2 hours south they were almost all mature. 

76 for me and 152 for the group. Check your spots, and good luck! 

#morels #murkels #mollymoochers #drylandfish #spongemushroom #theprecious
The first time I’ve seen fungal guttation-a natu The first time I’ve seen fungal guttation-a natural secretion of water I typically see with plants. 

I understand it as an indicator that the mushrooms are growing rapidly, and a byproduct of their metabolism speeding up. If you have some clarifications, chime in. 

Most people know it from Hydnellum 
peckii-another polypore. I’ve never seen it on pheasant backs before.

Morels are coming soon too. Mine were 1 inch tall yesterday in the Twin Cities. 

#guttation #mushroomhunting #cerioporussquamosus #pheasantback #naturesbeauty
Rain and heat turned the flood plain forest into a Rain and heat turned the flood plain forest into a grocery store. 

#groceryshopping #sochan #rudbeckialaciniata #foraging
Italian wild food traditions are some of my favori Italian wild food traditions are some of my favorite. 

Case in point: preboggion, a mixture of wild plants, that, depending on the reference, should be made with 5-23 individual plants. 

Here’s a few mixtures I’ve made this spring, along with a reference from the Oxford companion to Italian food. 

The mixture should include some bitter greens (typically assorted asters) but the most important plant is probably borage. 

Making your own version is a good excercise. Here they’re wilted with garlic and oil, but there’s a bunch of traditional recipes the mixture is used in. 

Can you believe this got cut from my book?!

#preboggion #preboggiun #foraging #traditionalfoods
Oh the things I get in the mail. This is my kind Oh the things I get in the mail. 

This is my kind of tip though: a handmade buckskin bag with a note and a handful of bleached snapping turtle claws. 😁😂 

Sent in by Leslie, a reader. 

Smells like woodsmoke and the cat quickly claimed it as her new bed. 

#buckskin #mailsurprise #turtleclaws #thisimylife #cathouse
Bluebell season. Destined for a Ligurian ravioli Bluebell season. 

Destined for a Ligurian ravioli as a replacement for the traditional borage greens. 

#mertensiavirginica #virginiabluebells #spring #foraging
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