Speaker 1: Welcome to This Country Life. I'm your host, Brent Reeves
Speaker 1: from coon hunting to trot lining and just general country living.
Speaker 1: I want you to stay a while as I share
Speaker 1: my stories and the country skills that will help you
Speaker 1: beat the system. This Country Life is proudly presented as
Speaker 1: part of Meat Eaters Podcast Network, bringing you the best
Speaker 1: outdoor podcast the airways have to offer. All right, friends,
Speaker 1: pull you up a chair or drop that tailgate. I
Speaker 1: think I got a thing or two. The teach you
Speaker 1: how to cook a coon. You heard me right, We're
Speaker 1: cooking a coon this week. You know, some folks eat
Speaker 1: them because they like them. Some folks eat them to
Speaker 1: support a cause one we'll talk about a little later.
Speaker 1: Back in the day, at least down here where I live,
Speaker 1: some folks ate them out of necessity. They were making
Speaker 1: do with what they had, which is a subject I
Speaker 1: covered a few episodes ago that inspired This Country Life.
Speaker 1: Listener Jason Campbell sending the following story about a time
Speaker 1: in his life when he was making do. It might
Speaker 1: be a stretch to keep it on theme for an
Speaker 1: episode about cooking coons, but there's some coon hunting in it,
Speaker 1: along with a good lesson and good lessons with their
Speaker 1: own theme with everything, and Jason Campbell's words in my voice,
Speaker 1: Here's the story called hanging Back. It all started about
Speaker 1: the time I thought it was all ending for me.
Speaker 1: Like most high school freshmen, I thought I had the
Speaker 1: whole world figured out. I just couldn't legally drive far
Speaker 1: enough to explore much of it. Everything changed in my
Speaker 1: small town world the day my lifelong bad need diagnosis
Speaker 1: got a name, nail patella syndrome. It was barely an
Speaker 1: inconvenience as a small child, but at fifteen it became
Speaker 1: a daily issue, and I hit the growth spurt that
Speaker 1: seems to catch us all about that age, and things
Speaker 1: kind of got out of whack that My faith was strong,
Speaker 1: but it felt like the beginning of the end. Thankfully
Speaker 1: it wasn't. However, there was a slight shift in my
Speaker 1: mountaintainment abilities. After major reconstructive surgery and new parts in
Speaker 1: both knees, I found myself still hungry for adventure, even
Speaker 1: more so after the struggle learning to walk again. I
Speaker 1: was so thankful and relieved as I slowly regained my mobility,
Speaker 1: and I give the Lord and the doctors my great
Speaker 1: family all the credit. Fast forward eighteen years, a few
Speaker 1: more surgeries, and I'm proud to still be working hard
Speaker 1: as a machinist, hunting, fishing, and even raising our wonderful
Speaker 1: three year old son with my awesome wife Rebecca. Now
Speaker 1: I've come to understand the value in hanging back when
Speaker 1: it comes to making tracks. I ain't that fast. I
Speaker 1: can usually be found somewhere in the background, mosing alone,
Speaker 1: doing the best I can, and just thankful to be
Speaker 1: doing so. I don't run like a deer, and even
Speaker 1: dragging one's difficult for me. Okay, I'm gonna get to
Speaker 1: the good part the coon hunting. This part relates to
Speaker 1: fond memories, empty wallets, a lot of luck, and, as
Speaker 1: Brent loves to say, making do with what you have.
Speaker 1: Back there in high school, I had two strikes of
Speaker 1: luck around the same time, passed my learners permit driver's test,
Speaker 1: and then shortly thereafter met a new friend, a kind,
Speaker 1: older gentleman at the local gas station. It had been
Speaker 1: the best breakfast for miles around, and old timer's hung
Speaker 1: out there, you know, the kind of place that feels
Speaker 1: like home to everybody that stops in every day. We
Speaker 1: struck up a conversation and he invited me on my
Speaker 1: first coon hunt that night. I al withhold his name
Speaker 1: for privacy's sake, but we'll call him mister Dale. At
Speaker 1: the time, I couldn't tell a good coon dog from
Speaker 1: any other. But man, I'm telling you, I got a
Speaker 1: great a backwoods education that night. And then a long
Speaker 1: list of things learned that stand out to me. Now
Speaker 1: here's three, in no particular order. Number one, listen to
Speaker 1: the old timers with your good ear. Number two, mister
Speaker 1: Dale had some health troubles and he wasn't fast, just
Speaker 1: like me. Number three, bloodhounds are beautiful and powerful creatures. Now, honey,
Speaker 1: with mister Dale and his crew every other night that season.
Speaker 1: Sometimes we treed one, sometimes we didn't, but I always
Speaker 1: had fun just easing along talking life with mister Dale. Now.
Speaker 1: A lot of times my knees and his health meant
Speaker 1: we missed the action at the tree when the faster
Speaker 1: folks got there first. Sometimes we just plumb gave out
Speaker 1: a breath and couldn't make it to the tree. It
Speaker 1: never bothered me. One bid to miss it. I was
Speaker 1: just happy to be invited along season. End of day
Speaker 1: year and it's usual fashion of going out of about
Speaker 1: the time the crappie started biting in the spring. So
Speaker 1: I was back to sleeping at night and then school
Speaker 1: and fishing in the evenings. Time marched on in a
Speaker 1: few months went by like short days. Then one day
Speaker 1: I was out fishing at a local farm pond and
Speaker 1: I see mister Dale walking across the pasture. Now, I
Speaker 1: wonder what he's doing here? Where's his fishing pole? How
Speaker 1: did he know I was? Then came the shocker, as
Speaker 1: mister Dale told me he had given up coon hunt,
Speaker 1: mostly for medical reasons, and I could see his despair
Speaker 1: and telling me about selling each of his beloved hounds
Speaker 1: one by one. I thought, surely that the last one,
Speaker 1: the only bloodhound of the bunch, and secretly, my personal favorite,
Speaker 1: was being saved as his pet just for him. Now,
Speaker 1: I have yet to find the words to describe my thoughts.
Speaker 1: As he went on to his next point and his
Speaker 1: reason for tracking me down at that pond, he described
Speaker 1: to me the multiple offers please and even downright arguments
Speaker 1: he had dismissed up to that point. Regarding the future
Speaker 1: of his beloved big red dog. He said, Son, my
Speaker 1: whole family and half of my friends are after old Betsey,
Speaker 1: but I've given a lot of thought. If you'll have
Speaker 1: her stopped by the house tomorrow, I want you to
Speaker 1: take her and my dog Box two. She's a good dog,
Speaker 1: and I always appreciated you hanging back with me in
Speaker 1: the woods, even if we missed a tree or two.
Speaker 1: It was such an act of kindness on mister Dale's part.
Speaker 1: It's been almost twenty years since it happened, and I
Speaker 1: still don't have the words for it. Though Betsy has
Speaker 1: long since been ringing Heaven's hollers. The memories are with
Speaker 1: me deeper than these scars on my knees. So many
Speaker 1: nights just found me and old Betsy I can still hear,
Speaker 1: especially when the wind blows cold through the briar choke
Speaker 1: Creek Bond just singing to my soul, just for me
Speaker 1: while I'm hanging back. Thanks mister Dale, Well, thank you
Speaker 1: Jason Campbell for sharing that wonderful story of compassion, determination,
Speaker 1: faith and generosity. And according to Jason Campbell, that's just
Speaker 1: how it happened. How to cook a Coon. A short
Speaker 1: while ago, my old partner Clay middle name I cheated
Speaker 1: turkey calling contest. NUKEM told you all about an event
Speaker 1: that he, his wife, Missedy, and me and my wife
Speaker 1: Alexis went to in Gillette, Arkansas, the Jillette Coon Supper.
Speaker 1: It was the eightieth annual gathering of friends, family, and
Speaker 1: like minded individuals who may not agree on politics, but
Speaker 1: can all agree that education, community, and heritage is important.
Speaker 1: It was my first attendance of an Arkansas tradition that
Speaker 1: I not only was aware of, but that I supported
Speaker 1: most years by buying tickets but never attended. It wasn't
Speaker 1: because I didn't like the crowds or I was disgusted
Speaker 1: with the thought of eating an I've been eating these
Speaker 1: critters my whole life. It was all about timing. The
Speaker 1: Coon Supper takes place in January, during the most holly
Speaker 1: of outdoor pursuits for a lot of our Kansas and
Speaker 1: those that fancy themselves as honorary residents Duck season. Duck
Speaker 1: season had My brother Tim and I are working hard
Speaker 1: entertaining clients at our duck cap on the Arkansas River
Speaker 1: and in the small community of Raydo. Now we were
Speaker 1: hunting and whining and dining and folks and just couldn't
Speaker 1: fit the event into our schedule, even though it took
Speaker 1: place less than thirty minutes from our camp. We never
Speaker 1: knew how many people we would have, and let's face it,
Speaker 1: not everyone, even hunters, get real excited about gnawing on
Speaker 1: the ham of a ProCon loader, the trash panda, the
Speaker 1: mass bandido, a river bottomed coon. So we would usually
Speaker 1: buy tickets from a friend of ours who sold them
Speaker 1: just to support the scholarship program that they've vent funded.
Speaker 1: We guided professionally for twenty six years. We missed twenty
Speaker 1: six coon sumpers. We retired from guiding a dozen years ago.
Speaker 1: That's thirty eight coon suppers that I didn't attend. Then
Speaker 1: came twenty twenty four, and my friend Austin Booth, the
Speaker 1: director of the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission, invited Clay
Speaker 1: and I and our wives. To look on my wife
Speaker 1: Alexi's face when I said, Austin's invited us and Clay
Speaker 1: ad missed it to the coon supper next week and
Speaker 1: to let it was not astonishment or horror. It was
Speaker 1: supportive and agreeable, with only one caveat. I'm not eating
Speaker 1: any and I'll be glad to go with you, she said,
Speaker 1: And that Gal's my best friend and I can always
Speaker 1: count on her. Support. However, eating fur bearing creatures is
Speaker 1: about where she draws the line. I've eaten them forever
Speaker 1: and usually either like them baked with sweet potatoes or
Speaker 1: barbecue like them cooked that way, but neither way stood
Speaker 1: out really from any other wild game I've ever read.
Speaker 1: To be honest, the most significant or intriguing factor of
Speaker 1: eating a cooked coon was the fact that you were
Speaker 1: eating a cooked coon. It became a staple of country
Speaker 1: folks during hard times, but the outside of the coon
Speaker 1: was historically more valuable than the meat found inside until
Speaker 1: the fall of the fur market. Now, when the fur
Speaker 1: market crashed in the late eighties, the way coons were
Speaker 1: valued changed with it, and people no longer trapped air
Speaker 1: hunting and killed them for the fur, and there were
Speaker 1: never very many hunting them just for their meat alone.
Speaker 1: It's too easy to fill your freezer full of deer meat, ducks,
Speaker 1: and fish, and those were always more appealing to folks
Speaker 1: with less of a conviction for eating wild game than
Speaker 1: a coon. The older fancies of the meat died out slowly,
Speaker 1: with only regional peel from specific communities keeping the flame
Speaker 1: burning for a stupot full of cooked coon. Except Gillette
Speaker 1: folks down at Gillette were keeping on keeping on. And
Speaker 1: while the amount of meat cooked through the years may
Speaker 1: have gone down and the alternative domestic choice has gone
Speaker 1: up during that event, the quality of this Southern delicacy
Speaker 1: has remained. Now, I'm going to tell you how they
Speaker 1: cook it. Cole Counts is in the agrive business and
Speaker 1: as a young man compared to a lot of those
Speaker 1: associated with the Coon Supper, but he's also a get
Speaker 1: alumnist who is helping maintain the tradition and supporting the
Speaker 1: legacy by volunteering every year. Cole sees the importance of
Speaker 1: the mission by bringing the community together in support of education. Now,
Speaker 1: Cole himself was a recipient of the scholarship and stewards
Speaker 1: the benevolence he received by working in agriculture and giving
Speaker 1: back to his community along with a whole bunch of
Speaker 1: other folks. He's quick to downplay his role in the
Speaker 1: preparation and pushes the attention to the men and women
Speaker 1: who've been there way longer than him. I get it.
Speaker 1: They should be recognized and have been as recently as
Speaker 1: Clay's Bear Grease episode number two fourteen. If you had
Speaker 1: listened to that one, get your hind end over there
Speaker 1: now and listen. He dives deep into the history and
Speaker 1: the politics and the highlights some of the OG's that
Speaker 1: have been instrumental in fanning the flames of that event
Speaker 1: for the last eighty years. Now, you folks have my
Speaker 1: unwavering gratitude and appreciation for staying the course and keeping
Speaker 1: the mission of the event alive and well education and family.
Speaker 1: But someone has to be reaching for the torch when
Speaker 1: the time is right to pass it on. That's why
Speaker 1: people like Cole and the others who come in now
Speaker 1: are so important. Alexis and I sat beside a couple
Speaker 1: who have been coming for sixty one years. He told
Speaker 1: me he was a graduate of Gillette and had never
Speaker 1: missed one. He lives in a little rock now and
Speaker 1: he and his wife travel every year to support the
Speaker 1: community and the students scholarships. The good Lord Willing I
Speaker 1: won't miss anymore. Now, let's cook this thing. A coon
Speaker 1: has four sets of glads that need to be removed
Speaker 1: before cooking. Failing to do so will give the meat
Speaker 1: the very undesirable flavor. It's simple, and with a little practice,
Speaker 1: you can have that rascal ready for the bully pot
Speaker 1: in less than a minute after you snatched his hind
Speaker 1: and off. The glass resemble a bean in shape and
Speaker 1: size and vary in color with subtle shades of grape.
Speaker 1: They're found in between muscles on each side of the neck,
Speaker 1: the joints between the thigh and the lower hind legs
Speaker 1: both sides of the rear part of the backstrap, and
Speaker 1: the joint between the body front legs between the muscles.
Speaker 1: Once that's done, the meat is cutting quartered into serving pieces.
Speaker 1: Front legs, hind legs, and a backbone. Pieces are placing
Speaker 1: in salt water baths of brine overnight. The brine can
Speaker 1: simply be water and salt and that works great. You
Speaker 1: can also use pre made flavor infused brines that have
Speaker 1: sugar and other spices added to create some unique flavor
Speaker 1: of yol. Turkey brins have been used by friends of
Speaker 1: mine and they say it's a great way to enjoy it. Now.
Speaker 1: I haven't tried it yet, but I will. The function
Speaker 1: of the brine is to infuse flavor and to tenderize
Speaker 1: and moisturize the meat. Brin a turkey, brin, a coon,
Speaker 1: it's all the same thing. Now in a big pot
Speaker 1: of water. I use a thirty quart the same part
Speaker 1: of brin am in. I just wrenched the pot out
Speaker 1: in the coon off before following coals directions, and I
Speaker 1: added four carrots and four onions, four bell peppers, six
Speaker 1: or eight stalks of celery night, cut up a couple
Speaker 1: of limon and then I went out on my own
Speaker 1: and I added a couple of bay leaves and a
Speaker 1: cap full of liquid crawfish ball to mix and I
Speaker 1: let it slow bowls for about two hours. Now, once
Speaker 1: that's done, the coon is cooked. But there's one more step.
Speaker 1: We need to amp up the taste even more. It's
Speaker 1: time to fire up the smoker. Any residual fat that's
Speaker 1: left should be removed before placing it in the smoker.
Speaker 1: I removed the coon from the pot, took off any
Speaker 1: fat that was left, and put the five pieces of
Speaker 1: bone in backstrap, both shoulder and both hams into an
Speaker 1: aluminum pan. Now, I have a camp chef pellet grill
Speaker 1: and set the temp at two twenty five in high smoke,
Speaker 1: and I let it sit in for about two hours
Speaker 1: an hour and the cook I turned the meat once. Now,
Speaker 1: once that was done, I took the pan off the
Speaker 1: smoker and immediately covered it with aluminum fall and I
Speaker 1: let it rest thirty minutes on the stove. If you're
Speaker 1: going to add any barbecue sauce, anything else like that,
Speaker 1: now's the time to do it. I didn't. That's up
Speaker 1: to you. Now allow me to do you another solid
Speaker 1: while I'm at it. Everybody knows that biscuits go with gravy,
Speaker 1: corn bread goes with beans, but for the uninitiated, sweet
Speaker 1: tateres go with coon. Now. I whipped up a batch
Speaker 1: of cream sweet potatoes while Coon was in the last
Speaker 1: stage of smoking, and they were ready to go when
Speaker 1: it was time to uncover the pan. Hot dog tastes
Speaker 1: better at the ball game. All my kids, from the
Speaker 1: oldest to my youngest, Amy, Hunter, and Bailey will testify
Speaker 1: to that there's a legitimate link between place and taste.
Speaker 1: Fish tastes better on the river, so it only stands
Speaker 1: to reason that coon would taste better in the environment
Speaker 1: of where it celebrated most. Let you let coon soper. However,
Speaker 1: there was no loss of flavor or enjoyment of eating
Speaker 1: it when I prepared my plate and set at our
Speaker 1: family table with Alexis and Bailey. Alexis and Bailey both
Speaker 1: had some If a bike can be counted as some bailey,
Speaker 1: she didn't care for it. Now, this is the girl
Speaker 1: that would rather eat barre chilla than ice cream. Remember
Speaker 1: that's probably a slight exaggeration on my part, I'll admit,
Speaker 1: but she loves wild game coon. It wasn't for her.
Speaker 1: Alexis the poster child for city girls who voluntarily jumped
Speaker 1: into this country life of mine with an open mind
Speaker 1: and a sparkly pair of uggs many many years ago.
Speaker 1: Try to bite and she said, I couldn't tell you
Speaker 1: that that wasn't beef. I just ate it has the
Speaker 1: same consistency as roast. It's just the thought of it
Speaker 1: being a coon that has me not wanting another bite.
Speaker 1: I love you, Brent, and I ain't eating any more
Speaker 1: of that. I like the way she always says she
Speaker 1: loves me, right before she adds she ain't about something
Speaker 1: I am. Everybody needs a cheerleader, a companion, a godly
Speaker 1: spouse who supports them in whatever they do. That's good,
Speaker 1: even though that may not wish to participate. Alexis is mine,
Speaker 1: and I'm sure there are just as many ways to
Speaker 1: cook coon as there is to cook anything else. This
Speaker 1: is just one way. The way I chose to do
Speaker 1: it was this one, with some help from my buddy Cole.
Speaker 1: I thought it was fantastic and will absolutely do it
Speaker 1: again this fall. Someone like my friend Jason Ellsworth, who
Speaker 1: is they show enough wild game chef, a man who
Speaker 1: could make a feast out of butterflies and haystring. There's
Speaker 1: no telling them what that rascal could contract with a
Speaker 1: skin coon. Check him out over at Ellsworth dot cooks
Speaker 1: on Instagram. If you don't believe me, now, I've been
Speaker 1: talking about frying catfish in the past, and now how
Speaker 1: I like to cook a coon. And if you like
Speaker 1: these episodes, let us know and maybe we'll do some
Speaker 1: more in the future. We've got a lot of stuff
Speaker 1: to talk about in this country life, and we'll take
Speaker 1: suggestions from everyone, even the guy that left a one
Speaker 1: star review saying I don't listen to the ex cop
Speaker 1: turned country boy who is talking about only god knows
Speaker 1: what every week. Well, mister, I was a country boy
Speaker 1: before I was a police officer. Maybe you were listening
Speaker 1: to it backwards. I don't know. Maybe you should try
Speaker 1: the Meat Eater podcast, Cutting the Distance, Foundations, Wired to Hunt,
Speaker 1: Bear Grease, Cows. We can review God's Country or The Element.
Speaker 1: They're all meat eater podcasts, and surely you'll find something
Speaker 1: one of them that won't make you so angry. J
Speaker 1: Cody J. Finishing this up in Manitoba, Canada. I've been
Speaker 1: up here getting ready to chase black Bears with old
Speaker 1: friends and new friends. And we'll visit about that later.
Speaker 1: Something else we'll be talking about very soon is some
Speaker 1: This country life of barrel gonna hang on just a
Speaker 1: little longer. I think you're gonna like it. Time to
Speaker 1: get ready to hit the woods until next week. This
Speaker 1: is Brent Reeves signing off. Y'all be careful.