Does Wild Game Deserve Better Than Campbell’s Soup?

By: Adam Berkelmans

 

 

I recently ran a little test–an unofficial science experiment, if you will. I found a few local threads on hunting websites discussing how to cook wild game in order to do some sleuthing. I’m not talking about next-level wild game cooking sites like Harvesting Nature, or Hank Shaw’s Hunter Angler Gardener Cook, but your old boys, blue-collar kind of places where simplicity is king.

“Newbie here,” I plugged into the thread, “how should I cook goose breast?”

Sifting through several identical and hiiiiilarious jokes that offered cooking instructions, with the last step being throw it in the garbage (really guys, enough with that stupid joke already!), I found the responses I was looking for:

“Crockpot. Can of mushroom soup.”

“Here’s all you need to do: put the goose in a slow cooker, add in a can of Campbell’s cream of mushroom soup, cook for 8 hours on low.”

“Fry the breast in oil in a pan with salt and pepper and finish it off with a can of cream of something soup.”

“Slow cooker and cream of mushroom soup is all you need.”

“Crockpot, can of Campbell’s cream of mushroom or celery soup, top with crispy jalapeños.”

“Take your goose breast, pound it flat with a mallet, season with salt and pepper, fry it in oil until crispy, flambé with brandy, and garnish with a piece of parsley, then dump it into the trash where it belongs.”

Damn, one slipped through.

I repeated the experiment on similar sites, replacing the goose breast with venison shoulder, pheasant, and even backstrap (loin) steaks, and obtained similar responses. It almost seemed like a large part of the hunting population saw Campbell’s Soup as totally synonymous with wild game.

Why is that?

Well, the answers are about as simple as the cooking methods mentioned earlier:

First of all, it’s easy; dump it in, set it, and forget it.

It’s also relatively cheap. As of the time I wrote this article, cans of Campbell’s soup ranged from about $2.50 to $3.50 at a local big-chain grocer here in Canada.

It’s probably become a bit of a tradition in many households, with simple recipes being passed down through generations, offering comfort and connection through repetition.

Lastly, it’s tasty… well, tasty enough, in a stodgy, over-salted comfort food kind of way.

All of that is to say that I get it. It’s not quite my bag, but I understand and respect why so many households stick to wild game recipes that use Campbell’s Soup.

But does Campbell’s respect you?

It recently came to light that a Campbell’s executive was fired for having an interesting conversation that was being recorded without his knowledge.

News outlets all over the spectrum reported that Martin Bally (now open for work if you’re hiring) was caught ranting about Campbell’s soup and those who ate it.

To sum it up, Bally was recorded saying that Campbell’s Soup was “s—t for f—–g poor people” with “bioengineered meat” and “chicken that came from a 3-D printer”, assuring the person he was talking to that he wouldn’t eat the stuff. He was also caught on tape making disparaging and racist comments about his predominantly South Asian workforce, calling them “idiots”.

Ouch.

Campbell’s has, of course, let Bally go, distancing itself from the fiasco as much as possible and assuring their millions of customers that “we are proud of the food we make, the people who make it, and the high-quality ingredients that we use.”

Remember, though, that this guy was an executive, not some mid-level worker. Another interesting point is that the person who recorded the conversation brought it forward to the company and was allegedly fired for it. It wasn’t until the recording was leaked to the media that anything came of it, which leads me to speculate that maybe Martin Bally wasn’t actually fired for making those remarks, but because Campbell’s is trying to save face. What do the other execs in the company believe? Do they eat their own products?

I’m not an investigative journalist. I’m not going to sneak into Campbell’s factories and food testing labs to prove whether or not their food is made with 3-D printers and bioengineered meat.

I am a hunter, though, and a big part of why I hunt is to feed myself, my family, and my friends with food that I know the exact source of. Food that I was involved with from the first track in the snow to the dinner table. Food that isn’t created by a massive shady corporation with poor transparency that acts like they care about me, but behind my back, calls me, and people like me, “f—–g poor people.”

Want to know something, though?

Campbell’s Soup needs you. They need you to buy their products every time you shoot a deer, a goose, a pheasant, or a rabbit. They need you every time you make your green bean casserole for Thanksgiving. They need your pantry stuffed with sodium-loaded red and white cans so they can keep paying people who don’t respect or care about you huge amounts of money.

But you don’t need them.

That’s right, you don’t need them at all!

Here’s a trick, and it’s going to cost you less than $3 and 10 minutes more per family meal.

Make your own mushroom soup by chopping up some white button mushrooms (or wild ones if you have them!), fry them lightly in butter with a couple of tablespoons of flour, add a pinch of onion and garlic powder, as well as some salt and pepper, then add in some whole milk or cream (you could also throw in a bouillon cube for that “authentic” flavor). Stir until creamy, then add to whatever you’re cooking. Presto.

Way less sodium, way less stabilizers and preservatives, and waaaaay less condescension from corporate bigwigs who think they’re better than you.

Your wild game deserves better than Campbell’s, and you do too.

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