Gry Hammer is the bestselling author of the book Fermenting – Tasty food and drink for happy digestion. She has great love for the Norwegian food traditions and all the good it does for the body and soul. Now she is out with a new book – The Modern Hunter – Your guide to clean and sustainable food. Here you find some of her best tips from the book.
13 tips on how to become a Modern Hunter
1. Make new friends that share your interest – and do hold on to old friends too!
2. Become a member of sites that have the same interests as you. Norwegian examples are Tradisjonsmat Nord-Norge, Fermentering og Melkesyregjæring. Ask to become a member and join the community.
3. Hunt for hunters. If you yourself do not know a hunter, you are guaranteed to have friends who do. Many hunting parties throw away the bones, which you can use to make valuable broth. Ask for the bones and entrails the next time they go hunting. In Norway you can search for hunting parties on finn.no – or you can make a shout out on Facebook!
4. Follow bloggers that promote similar interests as the ones you have.
5. Become aware of web pages that promote healthy and sustainable lifestyle. Norwegian examples oikos.no and renmat.no.
6. Make a Google Search for coops and coop farms and find something close to where you live. There are many spread around the country.
7. Nag the store managers in your local shops. Tell them what you want, and reward the manager by buying it when it is in the shop.
8. Get together with some neighbours and order large quantity of ecologic flour made from traditional grain – and share the postage.
9. Do the same when you order from really good online stores, buying good food, real salt, spice and other good ingredients that supplement your diet. This way you create new networks and communities that may be rewarding.
10. Free food from nature. Pick berries, mushroom and herbs, hunt for game and go fishing.
11. Take care of the seasonal gold! Buy big quantities of cod roe when it is in season or dried lamb ribs when the time is right – freeze it, ferment it, put it in cans. Maybe you know a hunter wit some extra grouses? Buy reindeer meat – the most sustainable you can eat, and a better source to Omega 3 than salmon.
12. Subscribe for meat and fish. And if you live close to a big city you can subscribe to cheese, butter and meat from for example duggurd.no. Most people in Norway know a hunter – or know someone that knows a hunter. Norway is not so big, so you can get far by hunting in your own contact lists.
13. Buy a big freezer. Anyone can fit a freezer somewhere in the house!
The Modern Hunter is practical and focused on “how to”, with over 100 recipes. It is easily converted into local markets around the world, by changing the Norwegian examples for web pages into local equivalents.