Let’s be honest: the hunting part gets all the glory. The cold mornings, the long sits, the story you’ll be telling for years. Nobody puts the cooking on the highlight reel. But that animal still has to become dinner — and “I shot it” is not a recipe.
Welcome to Second Helpings, where we deal with the other half of the hunt: the half with a skillet.
Old Recipes, New Game
These recipes didn’t come from a hunting camp. They came from the Panama Canal Zone, where a family cooked their way through the mid-20th century — recipes scribbled on index cards, half-remembered, argued over at the table, and eventually emailed across an ocean with the spelling fully optional.
So what are they doing on a hunting site? It turns out a recipe built for a tough old Panamanian yard hen has a lot to say to a wild turkey or a jackrabbit. Wild game is lean, stubborn, and hard-working — exactly the kind of meat these slow, patient, grandmother-approved methods were made to tame. One cook in the family even confessed that when the store-bought chicken wasn’t tough enough, they “dragged it around the backyard for a while” first. Out here, we come by that toughness honestly.
What You’ll Find Here
Honest recipes from someone still figuring this out — learning out loud, mistakes and all. Each one comes with the family story behind it, the original version, and the wild-game adaptation. No pretense, no chef voice, and absolutely no assumption that you know what you’re doing in the kitchen. (I didn’t either.)
Pull up a chair. There’s always room for a second helping.
The Recipes
- Pollo de Abuelita con Macarrones: Adapted for Wild Turkey & Jackrabbit — a Canal Zone braise, reworked for the birds and rabbits you bring home.
- Sancocho de Gallina: Panama’s National Dish — the chicken soup that means home, and the cure for a rough morning.
Second Season Outdoors 