Hunting Pigs With Mother Jones

For the last few days I've been hunting pigs outside of Savannah, Georgia with Kiera Butler of Mother Jones magazine. We've got all sorts of video that I'll have to sift through and edit into something when I get home. This evening we're going cruising for armadillos and crossing our fingers that it won't be too cold for them to come out of their burrows.

My own blogging of this trip has been light, partially on account of the fact that Kiera has things covered pretty well on the 'Blue Marble' blog over at Mother Jones. Her coverage of day one includes yours truly demonstrating how to gut a hog. Day two was less gorey but is still a good piece of writing. Day three is still in progress and tomorrow morning I'm headed home.

The photo here is myself and Kiera sitting in a tree stand yesterday. Kiera was hunting with my .30-'06 after we had an technical issue that morning with the 7mm-08 that she had started out with. I made the error of not telling her how very important it is to never put the muzzle down into the mud or dirt and not having a cleaning rod handy to get the mud out, I just handed her my other rifle. Hunting out of tree stands is usually not my style, but this was how they did things on this piece of property that Baker Leavitt generously allowed us to hunt on.

Yes, Kiera did actually buy an apprentice hunting license and learned the basics of shooting. She has not just been an observer on this trip but rather a full-fledged participant.

Speaking at the OWAA Conference

I'm very happy to announce that I have been asked to speak at the upcoming annual conference of the Outdoor Writers Association of America in Snowbird, Utah this July. I will be on a panel with Hank Shaw and Shaun Wilcox.

This is a really weird thing for me. I am being asked to speak at an event like this when I've been an outdoor writer for about 30 seconds compared to most of the attendees. There will be people in the audience whose work I've been reading for years and in some cases since I was a kid. OWAA's Members include writers like Craig Boddington and Phil Bourjaily. The very idea of some punk kid like me getting on stage and having anything to say that they need to hear seems ridiculous. Nonetheless, I'm very happy to take the tax-deductible trip to Utah and do my best.

Armadillo Recipes

Does anyone out there have any old family recipes for armadillos that they would like to share? Yes, I'm serious.

This Sunday I'm hitting the road again and driving to Savannah, Georgia for another expedition to hunt pigs and armadillos. My last trip to Georgia yielded one armadillo, which was enough to get me curious about eating armadillos but I didn't have enough meat to do a whole lot of experimentation with. I want to be able to discuss armadillo recipes in my new book and actually know what I'm talking about so the only thing for it is to go back for more.

I'll be hunting with Georgia's own Baker Leavitt on land that he knows well. My father-in-law and illustrator for my beginner's guide to hunting deer, Robert Leo Smith, will be driving down with me. We will be met in Savannah by Kiera Butler of Mother Jones magazine. Kiera will be hunting for the first time in her life as part of her work on an article about learning to hunt invasive species for food.

So who out there has some tips for butchering and cooking armadillos? I've already done all of the homework on the leprosy issue and the short version of the story is that there isn't much to worry about, particularly among armadillos that far from the Gulf of Mexico. There's really no need for 500 people to send me emails about that. I know that in parts of Central America there is a strong rural tradition of using armadillos as food. This is the sort of cuisine that I am particularly interested in. If anyone has advice or recipes then please either send me an email at jack.landers@gmail.com or post something right here in the comments section.

[The photograph depicts my daughter, Ida, holding an armadillo hindquarter, complete with scales and claws.]