eight delicious foods you can hunt or gather in the Pacific Northwest

No real revelations here today, but my husband is out hunting and for dinner tonight I had beef stroganoff with chanterelle mushrooms that was so very tasty... I got to thinking about how lucky we are to live in the Northwest, where Mother Nature provides us with quite a bounty.
When we first met, my husband used to tease me about my hunter/ gatherer family. My mom often prepared meals using only what we had hunted or gathered or grown in the garden. And when I say often, I mean we could eat like that for all of August, September and November. We did buy the Thanksgiving turkey at the store, but if we could find the place where the ones with the TenderTimers roam free, we probably would have got it the old fashioned way.

* Deer- My one observation about deer is that the ones on the west side of the Cascades are sorta gamey and best for jerky. The mule deer from central and eastern Oregon are tender and delicious and not gamey at all.

* Elk- One elk can feed our family for a year. Elk meat tastes an awful lot like lean beef.

* Crab- Up until a few years ago, you didn't even need a license to catch crab off the Oregon coast, but you do now. A daily license is $3.00 and you can keep 12 dungeness and all the sweet red rock crab you can catch.

*Clams- Clams are animals...so when you catch them, it's hunting, right? That's the way I look at it. Clamming isn't as easy as it sounds- especially when you are hunting razor clams, which run away from you. They can be very wily and it takes a true sportsman to bring home a limit.

*Fish- I'm not much of a fisherman myself... the last time I caught a fish that I ate was when I was maybe 7 or 8 years old. My mom cooked up a 6 inch trout that I think I caught out of Lake Twelve. I probably snagged it. But, if fishing is your thing, the Northwest offers abundant salmon, trout and steelhead, which is a trouty salmon. Or salmony trout. Steelhead are nature's (delicious) transvestites.

* Blackberries- They grow like weeds all over the west side- large juicy ones, and small tart ones. All delicious.

* Mushrooms- We love to find chanterelles in the forest. We see lots of other kinds of mushrooms, too, but we are only sure-sure about identifying chanterelles. They are so tasty.

* Water- Okay, sure, water is everywhere. But I declare that the water that comes out of the fountains alongside Hwy 26 between Portland and Seaside is some sort of magic potion water. It's cold and clear and sweet and...wetter than other water.