What’s the Worst Wild Game Meal of Your Life?

Yesterday I learned that John Besh, an all-star New Orleans chef and a friend of Field & Stream’s, has a new TV show on TLC. It’s called “Inedible to Incredible,” and each episode will feature Besh assuming the role of Kitchen Hero by turning the culinary-challenged into competent cooks. Based the series preview here–which shows one home-cook-in-need-of-help grinding strawberry cereal flakes into hamburger patties–I’d say that Besh certainly has his work cut out for him. And then some.

As I watched the clip, a couple of thoughts crossed my mind: First, it’s sort of sad that some people can be so clueless in the kitchen and wasteful with the way they handle food. (I mean, really, strawberry cereal and ground beef?) Second, if I’m being honest, there’ve been plenty of moments when I could’ve used some expert help in the kitchen.

For example: Last fall, a few days after an upland hunt, I ruined one of the pheasant breasts after I misjudged the heat of the oil in the pan and fried the meat to a black, burnt crisp. After managing to saw through the crust with a steak knife, I tried a bite but it was awful. I spit the mouthful into the trash, then tossed the rest of the meat in as well. The meat was inedible. Because it tasted so bad–and because the failure was entirely my fault–it was probably the worst wild-game meal of my life.

How about you? Let’s hear about the one cooking experience when you could’ve most benefited from some help from an expert like Chef Besh.