The Wild Harvest Table started as a celebration of the culinary bounty represented by wild game and fish in the Finger Lakes region of New York State.  Cornell Cooperative Extension Nutrition Educator, Moira Tidball, from Seneca County started the website in January of 2009 as a resource for game and fish recipes, nutrition information, and preparation techniques.  Her partner, Dr. Keith G. Tidball, in the Department of Natural Resources and Environment (DNRE) at Cornell University, helped with the inception of the website and recognized potential research questions evolving from the project.  With the help of Dr. Paul Curtis from DNRE, the team secured USDA funding for “Leveraging the Locavore Movement: Exploring Family and Community Food Decision-making” to examine how the “locavore” movement presents an opportunity to study and influence citizen’s decision-making about procuring, preparing, and consuming wild fish and game. Research objectives include: 1) determining the importance of wild fish and game consumption to food security in local NYS communities; 2) evaluating  why people are motivated to eat, or not eat, wild fish and game; 3) examining the importance or “legibility” of nutritional analysis for wild fish and game, and the way labeling influences consumer choices; and, 4) determining how people learn about processing and preparing wild fish and game, and barriers to finding and adopting this information.

All of the recipes on the website have been tested to be delicious and relatively simple to prepare!  Nutrition facts are included, though some species do not have nutrition information available.  Part of our research is investigating this gap in nutrition information for wild game and fish species.  So far, the team has partnered with USDA to collect and research nutrition information for four species- brook trout, Canada goose breast meat, ruffed grouse breast meat, and Eastern wild turkey meat. This nutritional content of these species is now part of FoodData Central, USDA’s comprehensive source for food nutrient composition. More information on this can be found under the “Research” category.