CES Offers Talk on Hunters and Their Prey, And a Cooking Demo on Using the Whole Animal

CHESTERTOWN, MD—The Center for Environment and Society at Washington College will offer two special presentations November 4 and 5, the first on hunting and the second on how to cook some lesser-used parts of wild game. The events are something of an appetizer for the second annual Locavore Lit Fest coming March 29 to April 1. This year the literary food festival will focus on wild food, from game to plants to bacteria.

Hunting: A Matter of Life and Death. On Friday, November 4, at 6:30 p.m., in Litrenta Lecture Hall, John S. Toll Science Center at Washington College, Dr. Marc Boglioli will lecture on how contemporary hunters understand their relationship to their prey. Boglioli is Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Drew University and author of A Matter of Life and Death: Hunting in Contemporary Vermont (University of Massachusetts Press), which explores how hunters’ attitudes toward animals flow from rural traditions they have maintained in the face of encroaching urban sensibilities. He offers a glimpse into a culture that experiences wild animals in a way that is at once violent, consumptive, and respectful, and that regards hunting as an enduring link to a vanishing past. Sponsored by the Center for Environment & Society, the talk is free and open to the public. Please email to tholste2@washcoll.edu or call 410-810-7162 for more information.

Wild Charcuterie: Making the Most of Your Quarry. Even the most avid hunters tend to use only a relatively small percentage of the edible parts of the animals they kill, discarding some very nutritious and delicious portions. Bill Schindler and Mark Wiest will help reverse the trend through a cooking demonstration Saturday, November 5 at 2 p.m. in the kitchen of the Rose O’Neill Literary House, 407 Washington Avenue. They will focus on oft-discarded parts of deer and geese that can be turned into delicious fare — from pates and sausages to cured meat. On the menu (but subject to change) are venison sausage, goose confit, goose liver pate, braised deer heart, and venison roast braesola.

Bill Schindler, Ph.D. is a professor of anthropology and archaeology at Washington College. His research focuses on prehistoric foodways and technologies. He incorporates wild foods into his and his family’s diet on a regular basis.

Mark Wiest, a doctoral student in the University of Georgia’s Department of Ecological and Environmental Anthropology, studies the conflicts and cooperative relationships that can form between state-level agencies and groups such as farmers, fishermen, loggers, and hunters that depend on natural resources. An alumnus of Washington College, Wiest is a lecturer in anthropology at his alma mater.

A $15 registration will cover the costs of supplies. Space is limited; advanced registration is recommended. Please contact tholste2@washcoll.edu or 410-810-7162 for more information or to register.