(light contemporary music) - Hello and welcome to "Prairie Pulse."

Coming up a little bit later in the show, we'll meet a treasure hunter, Terry Shannon.

But first joining me now is Jeff Benda, wild game and fish chef.

Jeff, thanks for joining us today.

- Thanks for having me.

- As we get started, tell the folks a little bit about yourself and maybe your background.

- Yeah, grew up in North Dakota, here, and ran away like many other people, but came back, twice, and have stayed here.

So worked restaurants and had a catering business.

And so I had a love for food, and that kinda translated into, with my love of hunting and fishing.

And so now this is what I'm doing full time.

- Well, I guess, I understand you went on a fishing trip in December, I guess, down in Florida.

Do you do that every year, or do you have a place down there?

What's goin' on?

- We do, my parents have a house down in Tampa, and so we try to get down there, about this time of year when it's really cold.

And so I actually went down there and did a charter, and caught some fish, brought 'em home, so.

- Yeah, were you always interested in cooking, you know, and how did that passion start?

- Yeah, that's what we did, when my family would get together and on the weekends, I mean, Sunday was all about cooking.

So you would work all week and then, then we would, my sister and my mom and I, we would spend the time in the kitchen.

The other siblings weren't as interested, but that's what we did.

And every time we got together, we were scouring through cookbooks and magazines, and trying to come up with something different.

And so that's always been a part of our family dynamic is getting together and doing cooking.

- Yeah, well so was this cooking not necessarily wild game and fish?

It was just cooking in general?

- Never growing up, no.

I was not introduced to hunting and fishing until 2003, from a group of guys that I was going to college with at Valley City State University.

- Oh, okay, so were you always good at cooking (laughs)?

- No, and my wife would attest to that, that I always put too much garlic into everything before we were married.

So for the sake of our marriage, I stopped using so much garlic, so yeah.

- Yeah, how'd you get interested in cooking wild game and fish?

- I first had the love of cooking, and then got introduced to hunting, but had just done the traditional, you know, you shoot a pheasant in North Dakota and you put it in a Crockpot with cream of mushroom soup, and it's not that great.

And that's what I was doing when I met my wife, and then I would have jerky and sausage, and then that's all we would do with our venison.

And, but then I would have these other dishes for beef or chicken or whatever the case is.

And I would make those into these amazing dishes.

And so it was my wife's idea to take the wild game and the fish that I was going out and getting, and putting those into these other recipes and kinda elevating that, so.

- Well, you just said your wife told you you weren't preparing, you mentioned the garlic.

Were there other things that she talked about that you weren't doing correctly in her mind?

- When it comes to food (laughs)?

- [John] Oh yeah, we're talking about food here, and cooking I guess.

- Right, no, I think, I just, different recipes, I like venison sausage and liked jerky, and that wasn't her favorite.

And so she wanted to, we had all this meat from all these different hunts that I would do.

And so she just wanted me to kinda translate that into doing that.

It was early on in our marriage, and I was trying to, I really wanted to impress her, pretty bad.

And so I was, would use that wild game and fish to do that.

- Yeah, I understand maybe your daughter's also a good test subject for you?

- Yes, yes, we have a six-year-old, and she loves wild game.

She loves getting in the kitchen and cooking with me, and that's a daily basis, yeah.

- [John] Yeah, I understand she likes antelope.

- She does, her favorite.

- You probably don't hear that- - It's my wife, yeah.

- You probably don't hear that in many six-year-olds.

- So pronghorn antelope.

Yeah, so I go out West and do hunts every year, for antelope, and that is their favorite.

So out of anything else that I, so whether it's deer or, or even an elk that I just got, or birds, anything like that.

Antelope is their favorite.

In fact, my mother-in-law, the grandparents had taken our daughter to give us a free weekend once.

And so they were down at the farm, and my mother-in-law had made a roast, a beef roast.

And my daughter sat down at the table and said, "What is this, Grandma?

What kind of meat is this?"

And she said, "It's beef."

And she goes, "Oh, I won't eat this.

I only eat antelope."

So, which is not true.

(John laughs) But yeah.

- Well, we tell our kids chicken, they'll eat it.

- Sure.

- What types of game do you like to hunt for?

'Cause that sounds like you do a wide variety of hunting.

- Yeah, I think one of the favorite things in North Dakota that really attracted me, was my very first hunt, was waterfowl.

I've hunted with the same group of guys, same group of great guys.

They're my best friends to this day.

They took me on my very first hunt 19 years ago.

So that hunt is really special.

We go on North Dakota's resident waterfowl opener every year.

That's our time together.

It doesn't matter what else is going on.

We may, a couple guys, we may not see them for the rest of the year, but that's the weekend that we have.

And that's one of the great things about hunting traditions here.

And so we do have that for waterfowl.

I also like to go out for deer, mule deer, white tail, antelope, and just experience all those places that North Dakota, Montana, Wyoming.

I love those places.

- Do you do most of your hunting, well, there you go.

You mentioned the three states.

Do you do most of it right around this region, or do you go other places?

- I spend a lotta time out in the Badlands of North Dakota, just absolutely fell in love with it.

I did my first hunt, I hunted deer and birds and everything out here on the eastern side.

And then I got drawn for an antelope years ago.

And now that's where I go back for deer hunting.

And it's that magical place where you get to hunt where Theodore Roosevelt hunted, and it's that nostalgia.

And I literally, I literally will camp and hunt in eyesight of where he had built his cabin, right on the Little Missouri.

And so it's a special place.

- Mm-hm, well, now my understanding is your brand as a wild game and fish chef has kinda taken off.

Can you tell me about that and talk about that?

- Yeah, I had, there's a gentleman, he's got a few cookbooks out, Hank Shaw, and he has kind of, is pretty popular in the wild game and fish realm.

And he's got a Facebook group.

And so I was on there and trying to learn, and kinda learn from other people that were on that group and reading his cookbooks.

And so someone had seen some of the things that I had posted and had reached out and asked if they could publish some of them.

And so I did that, and then started publishing with them, and then had some magazines reach out to me and said, "Hey, we'd like to buy some of your recipes and publish them."

And I didn't even know that was- - [John] A thing?

- That was a thing, that I could actually make money in doing this, and so it has taken off, and I was not on Instagram, I didn't have Instagram.

And so that was something I had to, I was encouraged to do.

And, but that's taken off.

And so, yeah, I've had my recipes published in different magazines, different websites.

And now I have a few different cookbooks that have been published or that are in the process of being published, and people have asked me for recipes for those.

- So, do you do, well, I understand in-person and even virtual cooking demonstrations.

- Yeah, the virtual cooking classes have been really popular, I think, with COVID.

And so, but it's also a great opportunity.

I've had people, right before hunting season started.

We had a couple of the cooking classes on Zoom, and I had people from Florida, Louisiana, Pennsylvania, New York, Wyoming, they had all logged in.

And so it was this kinda great opportunity for those of us who hunt from around the, to do one recipe together.

It was a venison recipe, but then we can talk and we can visit and have that opportunity to cook together.

But it's a social time to learn from each other and kinda share our experiences.

- Yeah, but I also understand, and I assume this is a separate, you do some demonstrations on field dressing?

- Yes, so yeah, I think a lot of people, where we live and just everywhere, they'll go out and do the hunt, right?

They'll have that experience of the hunt, but then as soon as they get the animal down, they'll throw it in the back of the truck, or the car, and they'll drive it to the butcher, and they'll have them do it, right?

But more and more people have really found an interest in wanting to learn how to process themselves.

And so I teach people how to do that, how that process goes.

And it's one of my favorite things to do, really, is to show people how to take care of the meat themselves, that it isn't that hard.

And for very little time, and savings of hundreds of dollars, you know, you can go out and do it yourself.

- Yeah, but is there a stigma with some about eating wild game?

- I think a lot of people will have, they've had a bad experience, right?

And I think mainly because it's, wild game is lean, and they've had somebody who has prepared it for them, and they had it overcooked, and it was dried out.

And that's normally what the case is.

And so I like to, especially when we have get-togethers and things like that, I like to bring wild game and make it, try to cook it properly in something that people will like and kinda reintroduce themselves, reintroduce them to it, and try to get people to fall in love with it again, because I think there is that stigma of the taste, or that it's dry, or, but really if it's done, it's like any kind of food.

If it's cooked properly, people are gonna love it.

It's the same thing.

You can overcook a beef tenderloin.

You can destroy it.

You can spend, right, tons of money on a really fancy beef tenderloin for Christmas, and you can overcook it and ruin your meal.

And it's the same thing with wild game.

- Yeah, you know, I've often heard people say there are tricks to do, to take some of the wild game taste out of it, of whatever the meat is, or even fish.

Do you have any tricks for that, or do you like to just prepare it for what it is?

- I really, it depends on what we're talking about.

I think, so some people will, in certain parts of the country, there have been situations where people will throw it in a cooler full of ice water, which is not a good, sanitary thing to do, and they'll soak it.

So I do not encourage that.

And it's not a proper, it's not proper for meat care.

Other people will soak it in buttermilk.

So it really just depends on what you're going for.

I like the natural, those flavors that do come out.

It's not something that we normally do.

Occasionally I'll use a brine, but that's, or inject it with certain things, but that might just be for moisture, right?

- Tell me about some of your, maybe more unusual recipes.

- Yeah, so just yesterday we had some friends who brought us Indian food from a local restaurant.

Last week, they came over for dinner, and I had chicken korma, and fell in love with it.

It was delicious.

And so I decided to take some rabbit, and make a rabbit korma, and I just made the dish yesterday.

And so somebody had actually brought me a rabbit.

And so I had fresh rabbit.

And so I prepared that yesterday and made the dish.

So, that was just a more recent one, yeah.

- Yeah, you got any others you can tell us about?

Again, just some things maybe, your unusual recipes that you like to prepare?

Or maybe just your favorite.

- Sure, we really like going through, so there's a Spanish bean soup that is made, that's kind of the family recipe from Florida, where my mom is from.

And so that we'll have ham, and chorizo, and garbanzo beans, Spanish beans.

And so I actually made a ham from antelope.

I made an antelope ham, from the hindquarter.

And then I had made some chorizo sausage using wild game.

So I'd taken this traditional recipe from my family, that is our favorite, right?

We have it written down.

Absolutely love it.

It's a Cuban dish.

And so then I introduced wild game to it, and my mother approved it.

So it was good.

It's really good.

- Yeah, mother approves, always good.

You know, is this your full-time profession now?

- It is, so I left with the encouragement of my wife.

So I quit my day job back in the first of December.

And so now this is what I'm doing full-time, yeah.

- Interesting, and you know, what is your personal favorite wild game, and fish meal?

- I would say for wild game, it would be either a antelope or deer.

It's the traditional backstrap, or actually most people would say the backstrap.

And actually my cut is bottom round.

It's bigger, thick, and I usually try to save that backstrap because, for friends and family.

That's kinda their favorite, but my favorite cut is the bottom round of a deer or an antelope, and getting a meat tenderizer on that.

One of those Jaccard, the needle ones, just going over it, just a couple times on each side, and just getting that tender and putting it on the grill, and just really simple, just some salt and pepper, and a little bit of garlic, and lots of butter.

And it's delicious, yeah.

- What about your fish meal?

- I love catfish, and I think there's this stigma up here in North Dakota.

As soon as you get north of the Mason-Dixon line, right, if you go South, everybody loves catfish.

They eat catfish.

And as soon as you get here and you go down to the Red River here in Fargo, there's tons of people catching 'em, and they're throwing 'em back.

They want that walleye, and so I'll go down there and fish, and many times I may not catch my limit, but the guys next to me, I'll always go home with my limit, because they'll either give 'em to me or they'll throw 'em back.

So we eat a lotta catfish.

- Yeah, okay, where can people find wild game for eating?

I mean, you know, it's probably not processed, FDA-approved or whatever, but so where's the best place for them to find the opportunity for this?

- Yeah, I would just, I would say like, you can purchase game online.

You can't, now for wild game and fish, I'm sorry, for wild game, if it's actually a hunted, it's against the law to sell it.

But you can do farm-raised venison, elk, things like that.

It's expensive.

But I just, I would really encourage people to reach out to someone that they know that hunts, and they can, lots of people love sharing it.

Most hunters will like sharing what they have.

And so you could always do that.

But I think for somebody who doesn't know a hunter, wants to have that experience, they can purchase it.

It's gonna be expensive.

- Yeah, you know, so what other advice would you have for families that want to get started with sort of family-approved dishes, and preparing wild game or fish out there?

- I think you take what your family already loves, those dishes that are tried and true, that your spouse likes, that your kids like, and introduce that into wild game.

I think tonight we're having quesadillas, right?

I'm taking deer shanks, so that leg meat that most people will toss out or leave in the field, and I put it in the Crockpot for 24 hours, shredded the meat off, and we're making quesadillas tonight.

- Well, sounds good.

I'll be over about what time?

No, Jeff, if people want more information, where can they go, who can they contact?

- Yeah, so I've got a website.

It's wildgameandfish.com, or you can find me on Instagram, @wildgameandfish.

- Well Jeff, thanks so much for joining us today.

- Thank you.

- Stay tuned for more.

(light contemporary music) Terry Shannon of Frazee, Minnesota is on the hunt for treasure.

Every pass of his metal detector, fills him with excitement and anticipation of what he might discover next.

Whether it's a gold coin, fancy ring, or a rusty old can.

(detector beeps) (leaves rustling) (light folksy music) - It's a piece of an old can.

But you gotta dig everything.

If you don't dig everything, you're gonna miss the good stuff.

(light folksy music) (detector beeps) My wife years ago bought me a metal detector, and she paid way too much money for it.

It just wasn't any good.

I was downtown in Frazee at the local meat market.

And a guy had a metal detector for sale.

I brought it home, and I went out in my yard.

Every time it got over the ground, it made a noise.

So I took another step, it made a noise.

I got so angry.

I drove all the way to Fargo, to (indistinct), and I got the very best that he had.

I come back, went out in the yard, same place.

And I got over the ground.

It made a noise.

What it was my line from my propane tank, going into my furnace.

The other one was just fine, but it worked out really good.

I had the top of the line detector.

So I started out right away finding some good stuff, and it just kinda escalated from there.

We spend our summers in Frazee, and our winters down in Melbourne Beach, Florida, on the Treasure Coast.

And I detect down there virtually every day.

In Minnesota, I detect the Otter Tail River.

And then I've got this regular, Oxcart Trading Post.

I go out there on occasion.

Now I just kinda got into a bunch of cellar holes.

The first thing you do, is you're gonna figure where was the most activity.

And it takes a while to figure that out.

(detector beeps) Between the house and shed for the animal, there's gotta be a lot of activity back and forth there.

So that's the first place that I detected.

(gadget beeps) I went over it, I think three different times.

And the third time that I went over it, that's when I found those three nickels.

This is a V-Nickel, it's dated 1893.

This one is dated 1902.

And then I got a Buffalo nickel, and that one is dated 1913.

You could go to a coin shop and buy these for probably about 20 or 30 bucks.

It made my whole day just finding 'em (laughs).

Detecting in Florida, I'm detecting the beach.

The key is being able to read the beach.

You know, if we get a wind coming out of the north, it'll actually cut the beach.

Or if the wind is coming in from the east, they have what's called riptides.

And these riptides will actually kinda burrow right into the shore, and they go out and it's taking stuff out with 'em.

And by detecting those areas, you get down to where the old stuff is.

The beach is very highly mineralized.

So a lot of detectors will not work on the beach.

You have to have a detector, what we call multi frequency, so it can move back and forth in the frequency chain, and not false out.

And you'll want to use a great big coil.

Now it's just the opposite, when you're hunting in yards or cellar holes and stuff like that.

You'll want to use a smaller coil, and you'll want to use a detector that you can turn the frequency up to try to get the depths.

(detector beeps) Now, this could be a coin.

This could be a silver coin.

I've done real well.

I've been real fortunate.

Up here, I found many, many rings.

In Florida, I'm looking for Spanish treasure, Spanish coins, the reales, and the gold coins are called escudos.

And the artifacts.

I get excited about the littlest things, I really do.

I was just showing you this can.

Apparently they didn't have can openers in them days.

This was opened with a knife, and I have no idea what was in it, but it would be kind of interesting to see what they had.

My very favorite thing is my first Spanish coin.

It's a 1701 Spanish two reale.

Couple years ago I was really lucky.

And I found probably the oldest coin ever found on the Treasure Coast.

If you look on the front here, it'll have an M, meaning it was minted in Mexico.

G, that's for the assayer.

And we're able to date this coin by the assayer.

He only worked from 1544 to 1548.

They believe this is probably the oldest coin ever found on the Treasure Coast.

If not the oldest, it's one of the oldest.

(soft folksy music) Part of the fun is just doing the history, trying to look up this stuff.

I have an email list I send out of my adventures, and I try to tell a story.

People come back, and they really appreciate knowing the history, the story of it.

Everybody was after me, "Why don't you write a book?

Why don't you write a book?"

So I did.

"Detecting the Treasure Coast," this is kind of a how-to.

It gives tips to beginners.

Then of course I showed pictures of all the stuff I found, and it come out really well.

So I wrote the second one, "Detecting the Ottertail," which is a whole different ball game.

I'm in the water, and wade in the river.

So I was able to give a lot of tips on detecting in the river, and that went real well also.

So I wrote the third one, and I'm now working on the fourth one.

When I'm treasure hunting, I don't have a care in the world.

I can't believe how excited I get when a gold ring pops out, and a Spanish coin?

When I find one of those reales, I want to show somebody.

A couple of guys say in my books that I wrote too much.

I give too many tips and that.

And really I want people to enjoy what I am enjoying.

There's a lotta treasure stories that are never gonna be told.

The guys find some real treasure, and they don't want to tell anybody, afraid the government's gonna come in and take it, or somebody gonna steal it, and I just don't feel that way at all.

It wouldn't mean anything to me if it was sitting in a safety deposit box.

I want people to be able to share the things that I do, and enjoy the things that I do.

It's just a wonderful, wonderful hobby.

And since I started metal detecting, I've been able to go on archeology digs, I've been interviewed, and I've written three books, and that's kind of a big deal for an old guy like myself.

I think I'm doing a pretty good job of it.

I'm getting pretty well known out there (laughs).

(detector beeps) (soft folksy music) - Well, that's all we have on "Prairie Pulse" for this week.

And as always, thanks for watching.

(light contemporary music) - [Announcer] Funded by the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund, with money from the vote of the people of Minnesota on November 4th, 2008, and by the members of Prairie Public.