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Salmon and venison cooking on an open flame.

Filson Food: Surf & Turf Alaskan Style

Anchored to Alaska’s rainforest-shrouded coastline, Barnacle Foods shares the flavors, sights, and stories of the uncommon delicacies from the surrounding region. Founded in 2016, Barnacle Foods makes pantry goods from Alaskan kelp (yes, seaweed!) sourced through sustainable wild harvest and regenerative rope-grown sea farms. The flavor-boosting kelp is the first ingredient, adding richness and depth to mouthwatering hot sauces, seasonings, salsas, BBQ sauces, and more. At Barnacle, they’re on a mission to share foods that do good for the ocean and coasts, the local communities, and the future. It doesn’t get more Alaskan than this.

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Filson Food: Garlic Mustard Potato Salad

Early European settlers brought garlic mustard to North America for food and medicine. Meeting favorable conditions in the New World, the species escaped from gardens, thrived, and spread uncontrollably. Today, garlic mustard has spread over practically all of the northeastern and midwestern United States and has made its way into Colorado, Utah, and as far west as Oregon. While common methods to control garlic mustard include burning, pulling, and spraying, you can also eat it. The whole plant is edible; its garlicky, peppery flavor makes it a fine substitute for arugula, mustard greens, or watercress. Although the plant is much maligned in the New World, garlic mustard holds a longstanding reputation in food history: it is one of the oldest herbs/spices used in Europe.

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Filson Food: Stinging Nettle Quiche with Smoked Alaskan Salmon

If you’ve ever brushed against stinging nettle, you know it and you remember it. The burn, caused by chemicals in the tiny hairs that cover the plant, can be felt underneath your skin for hours. Fortunately, blanching the plant neutralizes its sting. What’s left is a healthy, green, wild vegetable that can substitute for cooked spinach in all sorts of recipes.

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Filson Food: Pheasant with Tarragon-Lemon Carrots

“A whole roasted pheasant takes time to pull off correctly. Rush the process and you’ll end up with a dry, lackluster-tasting bird that will make you wonder why you didn’t buy a chicken. But take the time and care needed, and the result will be fit for any occasion. There are few sights more glorious than a properly roasted bird at the dinner table – and few tastes as rewarding as an aged and brined pheasant.”

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person squats next to a fire in a campsite with two dirtbikes and pinetrees

How to Build an Overland Camp Kitchen

Brendon and I have been traveling by motorcycle for just over a decade. We’ve ridden on many different style bikes—from a sport bike, to a cruiser, to a big adventure bike. Recently, we’ve moved on to a simpler, and separate, set of Honda dual sports. Our motorcycle travels have taken us through parts of western USA, most of Canada, and an additional 14 countries—with trips lasting anywhere from three hours to three years. Currently, you can find us wintering on Vancouver Island in British Columbia, prepping for the next overlanding adventure. Along with our motorcycles, our goals and priorities have changed over the years. Living close to nature and feeling a strong connection to it is one of our main pursuits. As we explore and experience new places, the methods have evolved to reflect a more sustainable version of travel. Hotels—and, more importantly, restaurants—have been happily substituted for longer trips where we camp and cook for ourselves. Every day brings a new experience, and eating meals packed full of nutrients in order to restore our energy and keep us well fueled is essential.

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rockfish roasting over red hot coals

Filson Food: Campfire Cajun Rockfish

Like many of the other reef fishes on the Pacific coast, rockfish has a mild, white flesh, which makes it a versatile fish that takes on the flavor of any seasoning added. Rockfish is superb fried, baked, or pan-seared, but my favorite way to enjoy it is grilled whole. Early in my evolution as an underwater hunter, I brought home countless rockfish. On late nights at the fillet table, this was our go-to way to produce a mouth-watering meal with just minutes of prep, without having to fillet the fish first.

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smoked salmon chunks on a grate on a wooden bar top

Filson Food: Smoked Wild Alaskan Salmon

Nearly every Alaskan who harvests salmon has a smoking recipe or two (or a dozen!) Up their sleeves. Including everything from traditional strips to kippers and pressure-canned to frozen, pieces of smoked salmon grace freezers and line pantry shelves in many Alaskan homes. The following is a basic recipe that was passed onto me by my dad and tweaked to suit my own taste. Smoking salmon always involves a learning process no matter how many times it is undertaken, and flavor profiles can easily be adjusted to suit.

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cooked seafood stew with mussels, white fish, clams, and crab

Filson Food: Northwest Cacciucco

This version of cacciucco uses seafood sourced from the Pacific Northwest instead of from the Mediterranean, as would be typical in Italy. The seafood used in this dish was caught along the coast from Seattle to Alaska. When I think of Filson I think of heartiness, and this dish is definitely hearty and rich and tastes of the sea. On a cold, wet, or snowy day, this stew will hit the spot. This is Filson’s take on an Italian classic.

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westland whiskey cocktail in two glasses next to a bottle of westland whiskey on a wooden table

The Smokejumper – Filson Hard Eggnog

In this version, I set out to make an eggnog drink that calls to mind sitting around a campfire out in the forest. I found Westland Peated Single Malt Whiskey to be the perfect match for what I call the Filson Smokejumper. It has a unique taste and a nose of smoldering campfire, with just a hint of pine (resiny) smoke. The smoke is mild and acts as an essential seasoning. The Smokejumper is garnished with finely chopped spruce needles, which not only add brilliant color but also a nice, mellow conifer taste, perfect for the holidays.

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woman with rubber floves on using a large knife to gut fish

Life Amidst the Tundra: Susie Jenkins-Brito

I was born and raised in southcentral Alaska to parents who instilled in me an appreciation of the natural world early on with a backyard sled dog team and a large garden. I grew up knowing we would count spring shorebirds on the Kenai Peninsula for the Audubon Society, go fishing for silver salmon on the Deshka River, pick ripening blueberries in Hatcher Pass, and that tracks from our dogsled would be seen leaving the yard as soon as the snow began to stick. Moose would eat our lettuce and at times fill our freezer, wood smoke often smelled like salmon in the fall, and the dogs would always howl on clear cold nights. Yet it wasn’t until I was grown that I fully realized how fulfilling a life in tune with the seasons, and the edible foods each season brought with it, could be.

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roasted chukar, lemon and potato in a camp pan

Filson Food: Chukars & Sagebrush Recipe

There may be no greater way to enjoy a meal than by going into the bush and cooking your harvest in the field from where it came. Although not native to North America, after being introduced from Nepal and Afghanistan, chukar populations took hold in many western states and Canada. These birds have earned the nickname ‘Red-Legged Devil Bird’. If you relish a challenging hunt, chukar is right up your alley. To cap it off, they make great table fare as well.

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farmer's cheese next to bread on a cutting board

How to Make Farmer’s Cheese

If cheesemaking sounds a little outside of your wheelhouse, rest assured that we’ve got the perfect way to get started.
Farmer’s Cheese is widely enjoyed across Europe and can be easily made with the tools you likely already have in your kitchen. We recently stopped by Venison Valley to learn how to make this farmhouse staple.

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jerky meat drying on pine boughs

DIY: Campfire Smoked Venison Jerky

When it comes to classic trail foods, jerky is always on the list. Whether purchased at a gas station on the way to the trailhead or made from a deer killed on a family hunting trip, jerky provides a great protein-rich, flavorful, shelf-stable snack for road trips, cold ridgeline glassing, or drinking beer around the campfire. In this article, i’ll run through how i make jerky, give an idea for a marinade, and show how to make a field-expedient jerky smoker to cure meat in the backcountry.

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Filson Food: Black Bear Currywurst Sausage Recipe

Most people may not know that bear meat is not only edible but also delicious. The meat is similar to beef in appearance and makes amazing stews and sausages. Although wild game meat is generally extremely lean, bear meat tends to consistently have slightly more intramuscular fat than any other game. For this reason, most of my Spring bear meat will find its way into sausages. Currywurst is a young traditional German sausage dish developed post–World War II after British soldiers brought ketchup and curry powder to Germany. This cultural mashup has caught on in a big way and is now served all over. Bear meat can carry a parasite that can be harmful when ingested; however, if it is cooked to a minimum temperature of over 160℉ it is perfectly safe. Be vigilant when handling and cooking bear meat to prevent any cross-contamination.

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Filson Food: Spicy Duck Wontons

One of the common misconceptions about hunting is that every time a hunter goes out into the bush or the blind, they come home with food for the table. Although this is always our hope, the reality is that we often come home empty-handed or with barely enough to make a meal, as is sometimes the case when duck hunting. When a day of duck hunting only yields two ducks for dinner, a good solution is to use the meat to make wontons that can even stretch into more than one meal. Wontons can be frozen before cooking and make a great appetizer on short notice since they can be simply cooked straight from the freezer. Most of the ingredients in this recipe can be found at any large grocery store; if not, they will have a suitable substitute.

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venison chili, cheese, avocado, sour cream, onion and herbs in a cast iron skillet on a grill grate

Filson Food: Homemade Venison Chilli

In my book, there is only one type of chili and it isn’t packed with beans and a scant amount of low-quality ground meat. A real chili should have chunks of high-quality meat in a rich flavorful sauce, no filler, plus some wicked toppings. Some people may say this isn’t “traditional,” but keep in mind that even traditional recipes are constantly evolving: the original chili of the 17th century is different than the chili of the 19th century. As far as I am concerned, this is 21st-century chili. Instant coffee, beer, and whole chilies and spices are key to building the deep, rich flavors of this chili. Thick, high-fat sour cream and freshly grated good quality aged cheddar make all the difference. And using venison in chili makes perfect sense, as it is much more flavorful than the more commonly used beef. Like any stewed dish, this chili will get better after sitting overnight and being served the following day.

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the bee's elbow cocktail, halved lemon, honey dipper, two rocks glasses with ice and liquid behind them

Filson Staff: Campfire Cocktail Recipes

A summer evening spent around the campfire is incomplete without something to take the edge off. We turned to Filson’s staff for a few fresh takes on our tried-and-true tin cup cocktails (i.e. whiskey slugged from anything that won’t leak). From a Texan rendition of the Hot Toddy to a no-frills Bourbon slush that’s downright dangerous, we rounded up 8 new recipes to keep your cup filled all the way through the dog days of summer.

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roasted pork shoulder with foraged asparagus & wild spring onions in a cast iron skillet with charred lemon

Filson Food: Pork Shoulder with Foraged Asparagus & Wild Spring Onions

Spring onions are truly wild and much more abundant than asparagus. They can be found in drier climates in open clearings and among sparsely treed Douglas Fir forests. The challenge is that the green onion shoots often look just like grass. Look for clumps of 4–6 green cupped or folded shoots that all meet together where they come out of the ground. Use your fingers or a knife to dig out the root slightly before pulling them out as a whole cluster. Once you get an eye for them you will notice them absolutely everywhere.

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smore with bacon on a wooden plate

Filson Food: Drunken Bacon S’mores

You know what a s’more is. They’ve been a camping staple around the fire for as long as any of us can remember. But what we have here today is a clever and boozy upgrade on a camping staple. Read the Recipe on the Filson Journal for Drunken Bacon S’mores These s’mores are irresistible thanks to their sweet and salty combo. Bourbon, bacon, and chocolate are the stars of the show and make for a campfire treat that upstages the classic version.

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hand holding a cast iron skillet with three dungeness crab cakes over the coals of a fire central text reads

Filson Food: Dungeness Crab Cakes

If you have only ever eaten crab cakes at a restaurant, then you have not had amazing crab cakes. It’s a bold statement, so allow me to explain. Crabmeat is very expensive and making an order of crab cakes big enough to impress a customer makes for very expensive crab cakes that are a tough sell. To get around this, most restaurants will use less desirable crab meat or add filler. More often than not, restaurants will add breadcrumbs to the crab mix to make it easier to handle in service. No doubt some restaurants make great crab cakes … but if you want amazing crab cakes, filled with only the best crab and so juicy they almost fall apart when you cook them, you need to make your own. If you can find live crab and don’t mind the extra effort of picking all the meat, it is a great way to go. If you don’t have access to fresh crab, you can find frozen picked meat at a seafood store.

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hatchet sitting next to crab shells on a cutting board, next to a cast iron skillet full of butter and herbs and crab meat

How to Kill, Cook, & Eat Dungeness Crab

One of the best seafood the West Coast has to offer is without a doubt Dungeness crab, and when it comes to seafood, fresh is always best. This recipe isn’t for the faint of heart and requires some legwork on the part of your dinner guests, but in this case, the juice is definitely worth the squeeze. There is nothing better than fresh Dungeness crab meat dripping with seasoned butter, and the experience of getting hands-on with your food with friends is a memorable one. This dish is best served with crusty grilled bread, ice-cold white wine, and good friends who aren’t shy about getting their hands dirty for their food.

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Filson Food: Fire-Baked Dutch Oven Cobbler

Backcountry fire-cooked desserts often take a back seat to more common campfire dishes, like breakfast hashes and one-pan meals. This is a mistake. It is true that most dessert recipes benefit from the controlled environment of your home kitchen and calibrated ovens, but this doesn’t apply to all desserts. For reasons that are beyond me, some recipes seem to thrive in a rustic wood-fired kitchen. Cobbler is one such recipe. For starters, cobbler just looks right at home in a cast-iron Dutch oven. Given the rustic nature of cobbler, it seems to get even better when cooked by fire. The irregular look and the slight char that comes with sometimes uneven heat only makes cobbler better.

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bone in steak with diced herbs, roasted halved tomato and potato hash on a wooden cutting board center text

Filson Food: Campfire Steak & Hash

One of the challenges in the backcountry is pulling off cooking a meal without all the equipment we are used to in our home kitchens. This challenge also makes it a lot of fun and forces you to get creative. The magic of cooking outdoors over a fire is hard to replicate at home. The food won’t usually look as nice, but somehow it seems to taste that much better. Maybe it’s something primal about cooking food over a campfire as our ancestors did, or maybe it’s the fresh air and big vistas. Whatever it is, it makes cooking in the outdoors very much worthwhile. One easy way to cook over a fire is by using a flat rock like a hot plate. Choose a dry, flat rock and clean it well before using it. Avoid rocks that are sitting in water as they have a tendency to explode when heated. Heat the rock thoroughly before cooking to make sure it can take the heat.

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large pink prawns, and shaved jalapenos with an egg on a bed of grits in a bowl, central white text reading

Filson Food: Shrimp & Grits

This ranks as one of the most versatile dishes I have cooked in recent memory. It is just as delicious served for breakfast as it is served for a late-night snack or anytime in between. Shrimp and grits are a deeply rooted dish down south, and, although this version deviates slightly from the traditional, it is very approachable and you could find the ingredients almost anywhere. Fresh spot prawns from the Pacific Northwest were used for this recipe, but any good quality shrimp will work. If you can’t find fresh shrimp, then opt for head removed, shell on deveined shrimp. Crystal is a hot sauce from Louisiana and fits perfectly with this dish, but any hot sauce you can find will work.

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a beaver tail roasting on a grate over red hot coals in a firepit

Filson Food: Roasted Beaver Tail Recipe

If you were a trapper back in the frontier days, a beaver tail was something that would have you licking your lips. Long, hard winters were filled with lean, wild game meals, which led to a scarcity of fat in a trapper’s diet. One of the more sought-after sources of high-quality backcountry fat was beaver tail.

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bottle of rancho de la luna mezcal next to two glasses of tequila cocktails

Rancho de la Luna Mezcal: An intoxicating new jam from rock icons

Rancho de la Luna sits on a hill surrounded by the otherworldly desert landscape. The unassuming adobe home has hosted sessions with many of the true legends of rock and roll since 1993 and is the full-time residence of studio cofounder and music icon David Catching. Three decades’ worth of liquor (and stories) are soaked into the sand here, but for a bottle to bear the Rancho de la Luna name, it would need to be truly special…

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hand holding a cut of venison bacon uncut covered in a white powder in front of a wood fired stove

Filson Food: Cure Your Own Venison Bacon

Before you start licking your chops imagining sitting down to venison bacon and eggs in the morning, we must disclose that this is not that kind of bacon. If you are set on the more familiar pork belly bacon though, this recipe will work just fine with some small adjustments.

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Filson Food: Basic Cut, Carve, & Processing Techniques

There are a few ingredients that every home cook should know how to properly prepare. Today professional chef Connor Gabott walks us through how to cut, carve, and process each. Head over to the Filson Journal for the full article.

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Glass with hazy golden beer and

Town Brewery & Filson Release Exclusive Tree Planting Beer

On May 21st, 2020, Town Brewery & Filson released an exclusive IPA for Ontario, Canada residents. Every can sold plants a tree through the non-profit organisation One Tree Planted.

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blueberry pancakes with crumbled walnuts on a white plate with syrup drizzling from a tin

Filson Food: Cast Iron Blueberry Pancakes

This recipe works equally well camping, as it does on a lazy weekend morning. Pancakes are pretty perfect already, but this version takes it to whole other level, topped with ice cream, homemade streusel, and spices.

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