Allan Appel Photo
A lonely tray of timid salad greens at an annual Fair Haven waterfront feast cowered at table’s edge, as a heavyweight line-up of pheasant thighs in red wine and other locally caught, smoked, and cooked flesh dishes muscled their way in.
The scene of the meat-eaters’ blow-out was the Waucoma Yacht Club on Front Street in Fair Haven, where the club’s eighth annual Wild Game Dinner attracted a full house of more than 100 biped carnivores Saturday night.
Of the 16 items on the menu from gumbos to cacciatores, four derived from pheasant and six from deer.
Following a few contenders from the appetizer course, which was served from 5:00 to 6:30:
Name: Venison meat loaf cupcakes with mashed potato “frosting.”
Hunter: Vincent Kay, who is also the dinner’s master chef.
Cook: Toni Heiden.
Where caught: Greater New Haven forests.
Secret ingredient or prep tip: Grind the venison with pork and beef fat to make it less gamey and help it cohere.
Eating tip: It’s not dessert.
Name: Smoked blue fish.
Fishermen: Waucoma Yacht Club bluefish contest participants.
Cook: Stewart Hutchings.
Where caught: Greater New Haven Harbor from Branford to Milford.
Secret ingredient: Add fresh lime after smoking.
Eating tip: Tastes great on English crackers.
Cook’s quote: “You have to waterboard me to get more [secret ingredients] out of me.”
Name: Pheasant Liver Pate.
Hunter: Vincent Kay shot the birds, and his dogs Blue and Virgil retrieved them.
Cook: Vincent Kay.
Where caught: A hunt club on Fishers Island.
Secret ingredient or prep tip: Don’t overcook the meat; mix in cranberries soaked in port, cognac, and balsamic vinegar.
Memorable eating tip: To be sipped [a little at a time] like good brandy not shoveled like at a gin mill.
Name: Venison Jerky.
Hunter: Vincent Kay donated the meat.
Cook: Gus VanDeerMaelen III.
Where caught: Greater New Haven forests.
Secret ingredient: A spritz of liquid smoke after extensive marinade in Worcestershire and soy sauce.
Eating tip: Go easy on the teeth.
Name: Bigos, a Polish hunters’ stew.
Hunter: Vincent Kay, of course!
Cook: A friend of Vincent Kay.
Where caught: Venison shot in New Haven County.
Secret ingredient: Along with the kielbasa, stewed venison, and tomato paste, there should be cloves.
Eating tip: A spoon and a good appetite.
And for the main course …
Name: Blackfish with shrimp and lobster stuffing, along with striper cakes and homemade tartar sauce and coleslaw.
Fishermen: Kurt Rubelmann and Waucoma Yacht Club guys.
Where caught: Not far from Fair Haven.
Secret ingredient/prep tip: Make the stuffing, consisting of 30 pounds of lobster, scallop, and shrimp, separately. Then don’t stuff.
Second tip: Bake whole on the bone.
Third tip: Hang out with the old Italian-Americans guys in the club and learn from them.
Other main courses included venison galumpke, which is stuffed cabbage with smoked venison kielbasa, and wild rabbit cacciatore. No pictures of these were available due to diners crowding about the tables.
The salad greens, last to appear on the menu before a “potluck” of desserts, were visible. However, they were too overcome with the situation to be photographed.
The event was a fundraiser for the non-profit century-old club; $500 of the proceeds of the dinner go into a scholarship fund for a college-bound student from the Sound School.
Vincent Kay cooked that up, too.
Note: Reporter Allan Appel is a member of the Waucoma Yacht Club. He has two kayaks but neither fishing gear nor gun.
:-)~
I want in.