Spruce Grouse, Wild Rice, and Cranberry Chowder

Use locally-inspired flavors to work with the distinct taste of a spruce grouse, rather than against it

“Got any ways to make a spruce grouse not taste like crap?” 

I grunted, not looking up from the spruce grouse I was plucking, its red eyebrow comb shimmering in the dying light.

“Stop treating it like chicken,” I replied, finally looking up.

“What do you mean?” he asked, brow furrowed. 

“I mean, you’re probably treating it like chicken, but it’s not chicken, it’s spruce grouse. It’s going to cook up and taste different than chicken, or even than ruffed grouse.”

“Hmm,” he responded, somehow furrowing his brow even further, “I think they taste like crap.”

I was hunting with a mixed group—some friends, and some strangers—and this was the only member of the group who’d been rubbing me the wrong way. A real whack ’em and stack ’em type who thought I was an idiot for plucking or keeping legs. Earlier, he’d fed three grouse to his misbehaved nightmare of a dog, grouse that didn’t necessarily belong to him. 

He was an extreme example, but not an uncommon one. I’ve encountered this rhetoric elsewhere as well, and not just from knuckle-dragging hunting trip add-ons. The minute something begins tasting anything other than bland or like a recognizable farm animal, people begin dragging it through the mud. 

I’ve heard some version of this my entire hunting life: pronghorn tastes awful, nothing but sage. That fish is so fishy! Canada goose? Sky carp, how could you eat that crap? This deer meat is so gamey! 

I believe that this line of thinking comes from a stubborn adherence to cooking wild animals like their domestic cousins and expecting them to taste exactly the same. 

First off, they shouldn’t taste the same! The beauty of wild food is in its inconsistency as well as its ability to pick up flavors from its environs. We’re out there hunting for something special, not just generic boneless, skinless chicken breasts straight from some factory farm hellscape (for the record, I am not at all against farming or farmers, just the industrial complex and consumer pressure that forces farmers, like some in my own family, into building barns the size of Costco). I think wild flavors should be not only appreciated, but also celebrated, much like they are in many traditional European hunting cultures.

Secondly, wild game doesn’t always react to heat and cooking the same way as fattier, plumper, and sometimes even chemically-enhanced meat bought from the grocery store does. Overcooked game becomes dry, chalky, crumbly, and livery without those aforementioned buffers which, I daresay, is why so many people turn their nose up. 

Cooking wild game properly comes with a pretty steep learning curve that many hunters never bother taking on. Paying attention and adjusting your cooking to not only the species, but also the individual wild animal that you bring home is an important first step to cooking better wild game. 

Despite the rant, I do admit that spruce grouse does taste a tad… sprucey. Not in a bad way, but if you’re looking to mask that flavor, you’re going to have to add some pretty heavy seasoning and sauces. 

Let me suggest another way. How about working with the natural flavor of the bird?

By using other distinctive flavors of the environment these birds inhabit, you can develop an overall flavor profile that is harmonious rather than something that will drown out everything about the bird that makes it special. Here, I used easy-to-make spruce salt, cranberries, and wild rice to form that synergistic marriage of flavor, but you can do this with any strong-tasting meat. Just take a cue from what’s around you when you harvest your animal, and work with it rather than against it!