A quick chat with author and chef Hank Shaw

He is busy promoting his new book, and maybe even busier keeping up with his hugely-popular, award-winning website. But that hasn’t kept Hank Shaw from doing what he loves, and what has made him a household name – at least in outdoors circles – in the kitchen and around the dinner table.

Hunt, fish, cook.

No, that’s not one of his catchy-titled books on preparing wild game and the like. His most recent release is “Hook, Line and Supper” – a guide to preparing fish/seafood. Before that, he penned “Hunt, Gather, Cook”; “Duck, Duck, Goose”; Buck, Buck, Moose”; and “Pheasant, Quail, Cottontail”.

Busy as he is, Shaw, 51, a former chef and newspaper journalist living in Sacramento, Calif., carved out some time to chat with Outdoor News about hunting, fishing and, of course, cooking.

ODN: How did you get involved in the outdoors, namely hunting and fishing?

Shaw: From my mom and family – fishing and digging clams and gathering things like berries … It’s just something we’ve always done. But I didn’t start hunting until about 20 years ago.

ODN: When did you first become interested in cooking?

Shaw: At an early age. My mom and stepdad liked to go out to nice restaurants, and that got me interested. Then I started cooking as a teenager and have been cooking ever since.

ODN: What do you prefer – hunting or fishing?

Shaw: If I had to choose one to do the rest of my life, it would be fishing. But when the weather is warm, I fish; when it’s cool, I hunt. My fishing and hunting revolve around opportunities. But I also don’t buy meat or fish for my household and haven’t for nearly 20 years. I fish every year and hunt every year. It’s all part of the fabric of my year – just not every day. 

ODN: What is your favorite fish species to pursue?

Shaw: Burbot and lake trout. My mom is from New England and grew up on the Jersey Shore. (There they fished for) cusk, which is cod’s fish relative. A cusk is the same thing as a burbot. And when I started fishing the deep lakes of Minnesota (where he worked as a journalist in the early 2000s), I caught one, and thought, ‘What’s this doing here?’ I don’t go fishing except to come home with fish.

ODN: What is your favorite wild game to hunt?

Shaw: If I had to pick only one thing to hunt for the rest of my life, I’ve got to say grouse and woodcock in the Northwoods. I love the challenge of Midwest grouse hunting and the environment that puts me in.

ODN: What do you like to cook?

Shaw: I cook at home multiple times a week. I like basic techniques – it allows you to cook a piece of fish or game cleanly and simply and to serve anything with it that happens to be good at that time. Mastering simple techniques allows you to be free. 

ODN: What is the most important thing to consider when cooking wild game?

Shaw: No. 1, and not just with game … You can’t uncook something. Err on the side of under-cooking. If you’re new (to cooking wild game), chances are you’re going to overcook tender parts of the animal – the breast or backstraps – and under-cook the tough parts – wings, legs, shoulders, shanks. With wild turkeys, people say you can’t eat the legs … But the legs are arguably the best part. All they require of you is time.

ODN: It seems like more and more people are getting into cooking wild game – even those who don’t necessarily hunt and/or fish. Why so?

Shaw: Game meats … it’s tough to buy actual wild game. For home cooks who don’t hunt, these animals are leaner and raised in less-industrial environments. I’m no fan of factory farms. I wanted to limit my personal footprint on eating factory meat. Not that I never eat it. But I do what I can to limit that. If you’re not a hunter, you can go to a farmer’s market and get more sustainably-raised meats. An enormous amount of people follow my footsteps without knowing they’re following my footsteps. It’s a lot cleaner way to eat.

ODN: What’s taking up most of your time these days, and what’s next?

Shaw: My book just came out, so I’m still trying to promote that, especially through Christmas. And the website (huntgathercook.com; on Instagram, he’s at @huntgathercook) averages a million page views a month. And I’m still just trying to dig out from pandemic land. Also, a friend, Patricio Wise, from Monterrey, Mexico, runs a restaurant near there and he and I are going to write a book about Mexican food, with a heavy (emphasis) on fish and game.