Hosting A Wild Game Banquet At Home

 

Holiday season is just around the corner, and with that comes plenty of gatherings with family and friends. December is a bit of a lull between outdoor seasons – the fall hunting season has come to an end, but it still hasn’t been quite cold enough for solid ice to have formed on lakes to go ice fishing. If you enjoy the culinary side of wild game, hosting a wild game banquet at home is one of the best opportunities to have a wide variety of dishes in one night. Here’s some ideas on how to make your own wild game dinner a success.

 

Be Realistic In How Much Space You Have To Work With

The best part of a wild game banquet is the variety of food everyone gets to try – but that’s not what we are talking about here when I say have a varied menu. Think of how much space you need to prepare and cook things. In my kitchen, there’s four stovetop elements, an oven, a toaster oven and a smoker outside. At the last wild game dinner we did, there were around a dozen different dishes; it would have been a logistical nightmare to try and get everything done at one time if it all had to go into the oven.

 

We picked a couple of main dishes that were a bit labour intensive and took longer to prepare (cougar roast and sweet and sour cougar) and supplemented with other dishes that could either be served cold or required very little cooking time – dishes like ceviche, gravlax and smoked trout were all ready to go ahead of time, while fried prawns and grilled octopus took only a few minutes of cooking while everything else was being pulled out of the oven.

 

A toaster oven or air fryer makes appetizers come together quickly, and a warming tray or crockpot are great ways to keep food warm if you’re limited in space.

 

Have Options

For myself, I love trying new foods – but I’m aware that is not the case for everyone. When getting a crowd together, it’s fun to have something a little bit out of the ordinary on the table (moose tongue, octopus, etc.) but it can be a bit off-putting to others. Seafood, moose or ground wild game of any sort can be more familiar to friends and family who may be just diving into the world of wild game cooking.

 

Make Time For Visiting

While at its core, a wild game dinner is about the food, it is also about the storytelling. There is something so comforting about being in the kitchen with friends and sitting down to share stories about the hunting and fishing adventures that were integral in bringing all the wonderful food to the table – and, of course, those stories about the one that got away.