Embracing the Field to Table Lifestyle: A Guide to Sustainable Sourcing, Wild Game, and Homegrown Provisions

The philosophy of “field to table” revolves around intentionally bringing food into our homes, ideally from our own land or trusted local sources. This approach is designed to inspire homemakers, offering practical ideas for stocking a well-provisioned pantry, whether your ingredients are harvested directly from your property or carefully selected from a local grocery store.

Our passion lies in sharing innovative ways to leverage the bounty of the outdoors to nourish your family with the highest quality food. This could mean sourcing premium meats from trusted local farmers, or quite literally, utilizing the fresh, natural foods found right outside your doorstep. The essence of this lifestyle is a deeper connection to your food source and a commitment to wholesome, nutrient-dense meals.

For us, the field-to-table journey specifically involves utilizing wild game, honey harvested from our bees, homegrown chickens, and grass-fed beef that is raised and processed right here on our farm. Beyond meat and honey, essential homemaking tasks at our farmhouse include cheesemaking and the creation of various cultured milk products, all stemming from the generous abundance of raw milk provided by our animals. This holistic approach ensures minimal waste and maximum utilization of our farm’s resources.

In addition to discussing our sourcing methods, we also love to share delicious recipes for preparing the food we’ve gathered ourselves. For instance, you can try our flavorful wild hog breakfast sausage or learn how to prepare venison canned meat. Mastering the art of preserving meat in jars puts you just a few simple steps away from creating a quick and easy meal, entirely from scratch, on even the busiest of days. This makes meal preparation efficient and ensures a ready supply of high-quality protein.

Crafting Your Wild-Game Table: Embracing Local and Available Ingredients

A fundamental aspect of cooking from scratch, and indeed the field-to-table philosophy, is strategically utilizing ingredients that are readily available in your specific environment. If your home is nestled by the coast, for example, then sustainably sourced seafood would naturally be your prime protein option. Conversely, for those who reside on private land with ample space, hunting wild game presents a viable and sustainable pathway to acquire high-quality meat. Understanding your local ecosystem and embracing what it offers is key to this resourceful approach to eating.

Our Personal Field to Table Journey: A Homesteading Decision

Our family’s journey into a deeper field-to-table lifestyle began during a pivotal conversation my husband and I had one day. We were contemplating whether to raise another meat cow, a significant undertaking for our farm. As my husband is a highly visual thinker, having a dry-erase board in our kitchen is invaluable. He often uses it to illustrate his ideas, which truly helps in visualizing the broader implications of our decisions.

During this discussion, we delved into the extensive time commitment involved in processing each animal, given his roles as both a hunter and a farmer. After much deliberation, we both reached the agreement that focusing on wild game was the most sustainable and efficient path for our family. Now, if this doesn’t immediately resonate with your personal circumstances, please understand that the principles are highly adaptable. You can effortlessly substitute domestic pork and beef from your local grocery store into my wild hog and venison recipes! Venison, after all, is quite similar to a leaner cut of beef, and wild hogs share many characteristics with leaner domestic pigs, making them easily interchangeable in culinary applications.

Beyond meat, our conversation extended to the specific vegetables we intended to grow to ensure our family’s sustenance, as well as the essential grains we needed to store and keep on hand. (If you’re seeking inspiration for cooking with garden-fresh produce, I highly recommend exploring my comprehensive seasonal eating post, where I delve into depth about the delicious meals I prepare using seasonal vegetables.) Sharing our sourcing strategies, whether from the field or the grocery store, can serve as a valuable illustration for fellow homemakers. I know I’m not alone in sometimes buying various ingredients only to later wonder, “What was I even planning to make with that bag of dried lentils?”

My core point is this: take the time to identify what your family genuinely enjoys eating and document it. From this foundation, you can then compile a comprehensive pantry list of those ingredients, leading to a far more organized and efficient kitchen. This crucial step is not just about convenience; it’s a fundamental element of responsible food stewardship.

The Food Ration Chart: A Personalized Approach to Meal Planning

Once we established what best suited our family’s specific food requirements, we adapted our cooking style accordingly. It’s important to note that if self-sourcing isn’t always possible, it’s perfectly acceptable to obtain these ingredients from your grocery store, or even from the growing number of online food suppliers available today. The overarching goal remains consistent: to maintain a well-stocked supply of these essential foods, always keeping an eye out for sales, or in our unique case, seizing hunting opportunities. This strategic approach profoundly simplified our meal planning and significantly reduced our food costs. By knowing precisely what to look for, we no longer wander aimlessly through grocery aisles, grappling with decisions about what we need, or worse, what to cook. The grocery store, we’ve learned, is not the place for impromptu meal planning!

Below is the exact chart my husband meticulously drew out. For clarity, the items numbered 1-4 at the top represent various grains, including rice, Hard White Wheat Berries, Hard Red Wheat Berries, and Soft White Wheat Berries. These form the foundational carbohydrates in our diet, providing sustained energy and nutrition.

I have also successfully adapted my cooking methods to consistently incorporate venison, wild hogs, and homegrown chickens in this structured way. These meats are inherently of higher quality, significantly leaner, and while they can possess a slightly “gamey” flavor, it’s nothing that cannot be managed with the right techniques (I provide effective tips for mitigating the gamey taste further below). Creating such a straightforward, visual chart truly transforms cooking into a much simpler and more enjoyable experience! It’s akin to having a custom food pyramid, specifically tailored to the foods our family consumes, yet still adhering to the fundamental principles of the standard dietary pyramid model. Sometimes, visual aids simply resonate better with our brains, offering clarity where text might fall short.

Much like a well-crafted meal plan, our customized food ration chart proved to be an absolute game-changer. It instilled a new level of logic and efficiency into our cooking routine. Having this visual guide clearly illustrates the essential foods you need to consistently stock and keep on hand for maintaining a healthy diet. For our family, this includes wholesome carbohydrates such as brown rice, various breads made from freshly milled wheat berries, and other diverse grains. It also encompasses a rich variety of fruits and vegetables, nutritious dairy products, lean proteins (whether from meat or plant-based sources like beans), and beneficial healthy fats and natural sweeteners. This comprehensive visual framework ensures we are always prepared to create balanced and nourishing meals.

Here is our custom Food Ration (Pyramid) chart, meticulously designed to reflect exactly what we eat. We make a conscious effort to always keep these specific ingredients readily available. Feel free to print it for FREE if you find it useful for your own household! It’s a tool we’re happy to share to help others on their field-to-table journey.

Now, let’s delve deeper into everything I’ve learned about the wild game, homegrown chickens, and honey that we proudly bring in from the field, offering insights into their unique characteristics and culinary potential.

Wild Hogs: A Lean and Challenging Source of Protein

Wild hogs are notably leaner than their domestic counterparts and present a considerable challenge to catch. They are known for their aggressive nature and their remarkable ability to escape traps much faster than anticipated. In our area, they roam our fields in large numbers and can be hunted throughout the year, making them a consistent source of protein for our family.

From our extensive experience, female wild hogs generally yield meat with a less pronounced “gamey” flavor. If, however, you happen to catch an older male, often referred to as a wild boar, its meat will likely possess a very strong, almost hormonal scent, due to higher levels of certain compounds. In such instances, we opt to process the meat for our dogs, ensuring nothing goes to waste while reserving the more palatable cuts for human consumption. Younger hogs, by contrast, tend to have a much milder flavor profile, making them ideal for our table.

For homesteaders, a highly favored and efficient method for preserving venison or wild hog is to process it into large quantities of ground meat using a robust meat grinder. While it’s generally not ideal to expect significant bacon yields from wild hogs, though it might be possible from older, fattier specimens, I prefer to render their modest amount of fat into lard instead. It’s important to remember that these animals roam freely and consume a wild diet, which contributes to their leaner physique. Therefore, manage your expectations for abundant slabs of bacon.

For our bacon needs, I supplement our diet with nitrate-free, or “uncured,” bacon purchased from the grocery store. While these varieties are often more expensive, they feature cleaner ingredients and, in my opinion, offer a quality comparable to what you might find from a local butcher who prioritizes natural processing.

The rendered wild hog lard is an excellent, versatile cooking fat that we use extensively. It’s perfect for sautéing eggs, vegetables, or any dish that requires frying. This provides a free and healthy cooking fat, further enhancing our self-sufficiency. Lard, being milder in flavor compared to tallow, is wonderfully adaptable to a wide array of recipes, making it a valuable addition to any kitchen.

Grass-Fed Beef: A Sustainable Investment for Your Family’s Nutrition

Processing a whole steer for beef is a substantial undertaking, typically requiring about two full days from initial butchering to complete packaging. This contrasts sharply with a deer or hog, which can often be fully processed in just a few hours. If you’re contemplating whether purchasing a whole cow is a suitable option for your family, begin by assessing the specific cuts of meat your family consumes most frequently. The primary cuts of beef generally include chuck steak, ribs, shank, brisket, flank, T-bone, sirloin, rump roast, and round steak, each offering unique culinary possibilities.

A steer weighing approximately 1,000 pounds will typically yield around 878 pounds of packaged meat once it has been expertly cut and wrapped. Any meat trimmings can be repurposed into delicious sausage or ground beef, maximizing every part of the animal. The bones are invaluable for making rich, nutrient-dense bone broth, and the fat can be rendered into high-quality tallow, a versatile cooking fat and ingredient for soaps or candles. Clearly, there are numerous profound benefits to acquiring a whole steer for meat: you secure a substantial supply of premium meat, often enough to last for a year or even longer, along with an abundance of healthy fat to meet all your cooking requirements. From a homesteading perspective, this represents a significant achievement and a wise investment in your family’s food security and health.

Essential Equipment for Home Butchering and Processing

Butchering a steer on the farm can indeed be a daunting challenge, particularly if you lack the appropriate equipment. When we first embarked on this journey, my husband had a very limited selection of butchering tools. In those early days, we even resorted to using a Cordless Reciprocating Saw (a method I certainly do not recommend) to manage our beef cuts. This experience underscored the critical importance of having the right tools for the job.

After working through all of our beef, I quickly realized that ground beef became my most frequently used cut. Its versatility and ease of preparation are unmatched, making it effortless to whip up a meal, especially when stored in 1-pound packages that can even be cooked from frozen. Roasts and other specialty cuts, while delicious, tended to be utilized much more slowly in our day-to-day cooking.

Throughout my years of cooking for my family, a consistent truth has emerged: simple, straightforward meals are the ones that consistently make it to the table for everyday consumption. Furthermore, my husband places immense trust in his own meat sourcing and processing, preferring to handle all the hard work himself. This commitment ensures that we consume hormone-free meat as much as possible, giving us peace of mind about our food’s quality and origin.

Sometimes, diverse cuisines call for specific, often intricate, cuts of meat, which, honestly, can feel quite overwhelming to me. I simply can’t bring myself to purchase expensive lamb chops, and for our family, chuck roast and steaks are cherished, rare treats. The key is to truly understand your family’s specific needs and preferences and determine what makes the most practical and economical sense for you. Considering the purchase of a whole or half a cow from a reputable butchering shop is an incredibly frugal and efficient way to stock up on beef. Whether you opt to raise your own meat, or engage in fishing or hunting for your protein sources, you are actively choosing nutrient-dense foods that contribute significantly to the health and well-being of your family.

Effective Strategies to Minimize the “Gamey” Taste in Wild Meats

Wild game often possesses a distinctive “gamey” flavor, which is essentially a more intense and robust meat taste compared to commercially raised animals. To effectively mellow this unique characteristic, I’ve discovered that incorporating Italian dressing, whether in its dry seasoning form or as a prepared liquid marinade, works wonders in neutralizing that strong aroma. It makes perfect sense when you consider that vinegar, a primary component in many Italian dressings, is renowned for its ability to eliminate potent odors.

It’s crucial to remember that both venison and wild hogs are significantly leaner than most domestic meats. This inherent leanness is why I frequently add a small amount of lard or other healthy fat when preparing ground wild pork or venison. This addition not only helps to moisten the meat, preventing it from drying out during cooking, but also enhances its flavor and overall palatability, making for a more enjoyable meal.

Homegrown Chicken Broilers: Sustainable Poultry for Your Table

Our sons play an active and integral role in raising our poultry, whether it’s our laying hens, meat-focused broilers, or ducks, depending on the season and our current farm projects. For reliable egg production, we typically order Novogen chickens, known for their excellent laying capabilities. When it comes to raising chickens specifically for meat, we highly favor the Freedom Rangers breed, appreciated for their robust growth and quality meat.

My preferred cooking method for our homegrown chickens is roasting. I can simply season the entire bird and place it in the oven or an Instant Pot to achieve a delicious rotisserie-style chicken. Once cooked, the tender meat can be utilized for various meals throughout the week, offering immense versatility. Crucially, the bones are then transformed into rich, homemade chicken broth, ensuring no part of the bird goes to waste. My recipe for homemade chicken broth is a staple in our kitchen. If you prefer to have specific cuts of chicken, simply divide the bird into desired portions on butchering day and freeze the carcasses separately for later broth making.

For even greater efficiency and pantry stocking, you can take the extra step of canning. Canned chicken chunks or broth are fantastic ways to preserve your poultry and build a robust pantry. To can chicken broth in bulk, I often place 3-4 carcasses into a large roaster, set it on low heat overnight, and then proceed with canning the very next day. I’ve found that making chicken broth weekly works much better for me than dedicating one massive canning day. It’s these consistent, small efforts that truly add up over time, building a resilient and well-stocked homestead kitchen.

Our Essential Butchering and Processing Supplies

With the right tools, the entire process of butchering and meat processing can proceed significantly more smoothly and efficiently. A large chest freezer is an absolute must-have for properly storing processed meat, ensuring its freshness and longevity. Investing in appropriate packaging is equally crucial. Whether you opt for one-pound ground meat baggies or high-quality vacuum sealer bags, a reliable vacuum sealer is an indispensable tool for preventing freezer burn and extending shelf life. I also strongly recommend a good-quality meat grinder, which makes quick work of preparing ground meat. If you’re passionate about sausage making, you’ll likely want to invest in a dedicated sausage maker, a precise meat thermometer for food safety, and a smoker for adding incredible flavor and preservation capabilities. We typically source most of our essential butchering supplies either from a trusted Mennonite Catalog or conveniently through Amazon, ensuring we always have the best equipment for our needs.

Diverse and Sustainable Sources of Protein for Your Family

If poultry or red meat aren’t your primary protein choices, fishing offers an excellent and enjoyable alternative for incorporating extra protein into your diet. Throughout history, many of our ancestors relied on fishing and developed sophisticated methods to preserve their catch, such as smoking or curing. These traditional techniques remain highly effective for long-term food storage and flavor enhancement.

Another incredibly important and cherished source of protein for our family is raw milk. We frequently transform raw milk into delicious and nutritious products like milk kefir, various raw milk cheeses, and refreshing smoothies. Beyond these, homemade sour cream, yogurt, and kefir cream cheese are surprisingly easy to make and provide an inexpensive yet protein-rich food source. With the simple process of fermentation, these dairy products become packed with beneficial probiotics, contributing significantly to gut health and overall well-being. Exploring these diverse protein options allows for a balanced and resilient food system on our homestead.

Conclusion: Embracing Simplicity and Self-Sufficiency in Your Kitchen

This field-to-table article was crafted with the intention of encouraging you to simplify your meal preparation, to move beyond the overwhelming array of specialized cuts often presented at modern supermarkets, and instead, to focus on the versatile cuts and ingredients you can readily prepare at any given time. Embrace frugality, prioritize food safety, and always remember to express gratitude for all the provisions bestowed upon us. By adopting a more intentional and self-sufficient approach to food, you not only nourish your body but also cultivate a deeper connection to the source of your sustenance and a greater appreciation for the resources at hand.