It didn’t last long. When Kate Krukowski Gooding finished her stage show at the Maine Harvest Festival in Bangor, she put out two trays of lasagna featuring wild game meat and boy, did it go fast, with a lot of oohing and ahhing from folks who stood in line for a helping. I got a taste of the BBQ lasagna with chopped beaver meat and moose sausage, cooked with Cellar Door’s red wine and yes, it was delicious. It was also spicy, thanks to a sauce from Dana Masters of Beast Feast Maine, who joined Kate on stage for the show. The other lasagna featured ground bear meat and venison.
Kate and Dana were both very entertaining. Kate has authored lots of wild game cook books, including two of my favorites, Wild Maine Recipes and 50 Ways to Eat a Beaver. Two years ago at the festival, which has grown to the point where it fills the entire Bangor Auditorium and hosts presentations on 3 stages, Kate was on stage with TV-6’s Bill Green, cooking beaver stew. Everyone in the audience raved about it – including me. Of course, you can use any meat with Kate’s recipes. Her Free Range Fish & Lobster cookbook includes my favorite recipes for fish.
Dana Masters of Beast Feast Maine, a Maine Guide who invented the “Sportsman’s Blend Sauce” seven years ago and now sells 6 specialty sauces and 8 rubs, supplied the BBQ sauce for the lasagna. We purchased Dana’s maple BBQ sauce and I can tell you it is very flavorful!
Linda and I enjoyed a wonderful Saturday at the Festival this year, which featured over 150 farms and other producers of food and Maine-made products. But Kate and Dana’s stage show was the highlight for me.
When they got to questions from the audience, I asked Kate what the most unusual Maine critter is that she’s cooked. She thought for a moment and said it was raccoon. Her husband Don brought back from a trip some meat of an Iguana and a Python, along with Lama Tongue. Yes, this couple is adventurous! Kate is actually writing a Python cookbook to sell to Floridians who now sponsor a hunt for those invasive beasts that have taken over their wetlands.
I also asked Kate if she’d ever cooked road kill and was surprised when she said she has not. Later that gave me a chance to tell her my road kill story. I was out for a walk one early morning and found a fresh road-killed grouse. As I was picking it up, a car went by, driven by a teacher who, when she got to school, told my teacher-wife Linda that she was probably cooking grouse for dinner that night. Too late. I ate it for lunch!
Kate also told a story about a bobcat that was given to her by a friend. It sat in her freezer for a year. And, she said, “It looked like a cat so I couldn’t cook it. I put it out for the coyotes.” I am sure they enjoyed it!