Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Ask The Gunwriters Slice of The Wild: cut and cook game for your table

Shoutout to Eileen for this book. I had originally bought it for the recipes a few years ago, but recently shot a buck and wanted information on aging the meat which is covered in the book. The Taste and Tenderness Test is a great method, which seems like common sense after you read it but it helps to have guidance.

I also appreciated the section on cutting, especially since this buck is tasty and tender. In the past, I have just hacked up animals, but am taking time to make some good cuts. I probably should have paid more attention to the beginning of the book in the past!

Anyway, thanks Eileen for this great book.

Jason

PS - I have the older version of the book with hardcover. I think the newer version is spiralbound with slightly different title.

Hi Jason. Yes, the latest printing of the book is soft cover with a spiral binding, which I think is handy--it lies flat on the counter when you're putting a dish together. But we didn't change any of the recipes or instructions. The newer printing is 2 pages longer just to allow that blank page in the beginning of the book. In the hard cover, that blank page is tan and wasn't in the test's page count. (It's one of those Printer Gack things.)
That hard cover version of Slice of the Wild has a typo that I wish I'd caught. Turn to page 132 in the hard cover (134 in the spiral bound): Al Fredo Pot Roast and Sandwich Meat. Under 'cooking' #2, instead of adding a 'soup mix' it's the bottle of al Fredo sauce you add. I also didn't add the amount of potatoes and carrots you could add for a pot roast. I've added anywhere between 1/2 to a whole pound of each to the crock pot. It just depends on how hungry I am for meat vs. veggies. I'm always hungry for the gravy the al Fredo sauce makes.

My friend Carol Fox caught that a few years ago and called to ask me about it. I've been correcting it ever since. The recipe is too good to not cook, so thanks for giving me that chance. One of the reasons I put my phone # on my cookbooks.

Eileen
PS: The name of the book is the same on both hard and spiral versions: our tech guy suggested emphasizing that it has 100 venison recipes, so we altered that on the website, so browsers know exactly what's in it.
PPS: I've gotten a lot of feedback on the 'front of the book.' In all my books. They all have lots of game care/shortcuts/better cooking methods in them, and I've had more than one husband/hunter say his wife took over the game care and cooking after seeing Slice of the Wild. And she enjoyed eating it after taking over where she hadn't before.
One guy said he'd bought the goose and duck cookbook and gone straight for the recipes and hadn't noticed much change in flavor. Then he found 'the front of the book' and suddenly all those recipes were different and, after 40 years of hunting, he finally enjoyed eating waterfowl. (Unfortunately, that book is out of print, but I as I said, all my cookbooks have a 'front' that will help either with game care or cutting, or just up your cooking prowess.)

I agree. Slice of the Wild is a great book. I need to get mine out and pencil in these corrections.

Leenie3freezers;
Good afternoon, I hope the season is going well for you and John and that you're both well.

Thanks for the correction - but - imagine my surprise when I checked my copy and it appears someone already changed it? Perhaps the book's author as I don't recognize the printing?

Nearly every year at our annual Hunter Safety course at the gun club I recommend this book and have given at least one away to a worthy young coworker who needed to figure out how to cook the stuff they were shooting.

The other week I was shuffling the freezer like we do if we get something and found some stew meat chunks that were a couple years old. With that whitetail stew meat I made up the "Rib Sticking Stew" on page 141 and despite having to substitute whatever decent local red that my better half had open instead of the medium dry sherry, it was wonderful!!

Thanks again for the effort that went into the book, it is in my opinion the best one out there.

All the best to you and John, good luck on your hunts.

Dwayne

Just corrected my copy😀

Hi Eileen; Just corrected my copy. My wife and I get your book out every year when we process our 1 deer. Since we both have short memories now, it helps to refresh them before the knives get going. We are especially happy that we discovered "Tender chunks". It cuts down on the amount of meat left to grind and they are useful in many ways. Thanks for a great book!

Hope your season is going well.

Hey Dwayne! I've been enjoying your photos of the backyard critters at your house. We had a gaggle of mule deer does and fawns last summer napping on our lawn, but usually we're watching the squirrels running back and forth.
I'm glad you liked that recipe using the wine you had on hand. The thing with sherry though, is that it adds a nutty, deep, rich flavor to soups, pot roasts etc. And you don't have to buy the expensive stuff. Even Cooks Illustrated says the inexpensive stuff works just fine. Our liquor store usually carries a Paul Masson medium sherry, and I try to keep a bottle in the house. (Unlike wine, it lasts a very long time after opening.)
Two antelope down, so far. A fat buck, and one of those mythical dry does. We butchered them today, and they're very tasty.

Eileen;
Thanks for the reply, I appreciate it.

We'll see what we can find in the local store for cooking sherry and give it a try for sure.

As the garden and fresh stuff winds down, it's getting to be red meat season once more.

I picked a bunch of morels on the burn on the mountain behind the house this spring and have been enjoying them too.

Congratulations on the antelope, I've liked it when I tried it.

Glad you enjoyed the yard photos.

All the best and good luck on the rest of your hunts.

Dwayne

We had a local guy selling his home-grown mushrooms at our Farmer's Market Last year. One type was oyster, can't remember the others, but they all tasted wonderful with pan-seared venison steaks. We'd put the seared steaks in a 200F oven to keep them warm, and finish cooking, then toss a bunch of butter in the pan, chopped garlic and the sliced-up mushrooms. Saute until tender. There's a variation on that recipe in Slice of the Wild, with a bit of Marsala, but it's great without the wine too. (I have some roasted garlic in the fridge that needs to get used, another variation that really works.) Doesn't take long for the 'shrooms, and then return the steaks to the pan and slather them with the butter/garlic/mushrooms. Okay, now I'm hungry. Again.
This year we've been having to make do with portobello mushrooms, but now I'm wondering if I might find some morels in the woods while John hunts his cow moose. There's griz out there, and one hunter in Mt has already been attacked in the woods this fall--luckily just swatted at and sat on--so I'm riding shotgun (literally, with my Serengeti .308) to guard John when he gets an animal down.

Eileen

Eileen,

Dang, this sounds so good that I need a copy. I will order and wonder if you can add to my previous order of "handloads that work" and ship both at the same time to save you some shipping cost?

Thanks,

Scott

Slice of The Wild is a super book.

The first 60 pages or so has a lot of really good information in it about handling, aging and cutting, as mentioned. We grew up butchering all of our own deer. I started making some cuts that were new to me after reading Eileen's book and it's been for the better. The photos detailing the cuts are excellent. Thank you Eileen!

Brad, you're not the only one who enjoys the photos. A friend of ours, who's a retired law enforcement guy, bought the book. At the time, he and his wife lived on the edge of elk habitat and she took an elk regularly. Normally, he was there to take care of it, and get it home. Shortly after buying Slice, he was working one day, and came home to what he laughingly described as a 'crime scene.' She had killed an elk and, knowing her hubby wouldn't be back soon and that the animal needed to be gutted and cooled, walked the few hundred yards back home, grabbed Slice of the Wild, and took it back up to the elk. She turned to the field dressing pages and got the job done but ended up wearing a lot of the blood. (It was her first which gives her a pass, but FYI, I still end up wearing it. Blood, paint, garden mud.)

She had returned to the house just as her husband walked in. Took him a minute or two to get over the shock, but he called us later in the day with a BIG thank you.

Eileen, I just ordered a copy of Slice of The Wild. I also have a copy of Handloads that Work on order. If it can save on shipping, please ship them both at the same time. Thanks and God bless, Scott.

Thanks Scott. It does help with the bottom line. But if you change your mind, let me know. When does your hunting season start?
Eileen

Eileen,

I just ordered all the remaining books from your website that I don't already have. Please feel free to ship them together. I will be hunting for the next week in Utah and don't need them right away!

Thanks,

Onerifle

Eileen, there is no rush. Our firearms season for deer starts the Saturday after Thanksgiving. Take care, Scott.

Thanks for the information, Eileen. I made the correction for the Al Fredo Pot Roast and Sandwich Meat to my hardcover copy. If you didn't mention it, I don't think that I would have noticed! Not a major typo at all.

The 'front of the books' are awesome. I really appreciate that information.

Jason

I agree. The photographs are excellent. Some cookbooks don't go into enough detail, or even cover it.

Eileen,

I apparently didn’t learn about your cookbooks until after the goose and duck book went out of print. Is there any chance for a second printing? I would buy at least two as I have a good friend who loves to duck hunt but doesn’t like to eat duck.

Hmm, on second thought, maybe I won’t give him a copy; right now he regularly gives me birds and I wouldn’t want to mess that up. But I do have other friends that would appreciate it, so I'd still get two.

Thanks

Hey Georat, Probably won't reprint it, at least not for a while, but I pick up used copies--ones in very good shape--whenever I run into them. And I do have 3 copies coming as we speak.
And I agree. Someone who gifts you with game is a gift. You don't want to mess that up.

If you send me a note: riflesandrecipesgmail.com I'll get hold of you when I get the books in hand.

Eileen