Dinner: From Field to Plate
If you really want to know where your food comes from, here’s one place to check out for lessons. Dai Due, deep in the heart of Texas, offers “field to plate” classes.
At their New School of Traditional Cookery, you can participate in hunting and fishing weekends, where you can take part in harvesting an animal, field-dressing, cooking and then eating it. Think of it as a destination hunting school. Yeah, you need a Texas hunting license (you will be shooting a gun), but this is the ultimate survival tool: you’ll eat what you shoot.
Your Road Trips Foodie ran across Dai Due in a feature article recently in the Wall Street Journal, a probable reason why the next two “Whole Hog” sessions are sold out as well as both “Chicken, Start to Finish” sessions and the new “Introduction to Goat”. Those are 1/2-day workshops, held at the outdoor kitchen at Hausbar Farm, East Austin, Texas.
The next hunting school (weekend of January 18) also is sold out, and future dates are not yet available. The weekend sessions are held at Madroño Ranch, Medina, Texas.
If you’d rather have your meat without shooting it, Dai Due Butcher Shop sells old-style sausage and charcuterie at central Texas farmers markets (including the Austin Farmer’s Market, open from 9 a.m. ti 1 p.m. Saturdays in Republic Square Park (4th & Guadalupe – map).
(Photo courtesy of Dai Due)
