History doesn’t have much to say about the cooking or hunting habits of Wyoming’s three-term governor, Ed Herschler, but some mysterious clues have surfaced, thanks to an off-the-wall cooking blog called Cookin' with Congress.
The blog, produced by Southern California resident Bennett Rea, explores “unhinged” favorite recipes from politicians with the motto “Salute bad taste.”
Think celery bread from Sen. Ernest Hollings of South Carolina, for example, or Jimmy Carter’s insane cheese ring recipe, which is a blend of mayonnaise, sharp cheddar, raw onion, and nuts, served with strawberry jam and crackers.
Or how about former Oregon Gov. Tom McCall’s blue cheese mold with fruit?
If the recipes all sound pretty awful, that’s the point of Rea’s cooking blog. Although Rea had to admit the celery bread was actually pretty good.
Minus the celery.
“Spicy salt bread. It’s very good, but the name is a lie,” Rea says in his TikTok video about the recipe as he eats a slice of it. “You gotta change the name from celery bread to uhhh … toast.”
@cookinwithcongress Wyoming, are elk so prevalent that you’re willing to bury their delicious flavor in prepackaged gravy mix? Asking for a friend. I’ve had similar dishes before…but with the cheapest cut of beef, which is what Ed Herschler says you can sub in with for this recipe, he actually notes “you can also use beef chuck.” Why oh why would Governor Ed Herschler use elk?! I’m guessing in Wyoming, he hunted it himself and it didn’t cost $30 per pound, that’s why. I actually have some stories about elk hunting that you wouldn’t expect, but for now I’ll just say I did NOT hunt this elk myself and it was expensive as hell to just taste like gravied-up salt beef —also…it was pretty good. #foodreview ♬ National Anthem - The Ovation Chorale and Brass
Herschler’s Recipe
Rea’s Herschler recipe was Brown Elk in Beer, and it was another that the TikTok personality ultimately admitted was actually pretty tasty.
He found it in a 1982 book called “The Great American Politicians Cookbook,” published by Yoknapatawpha Press and edited by Dean Faulkner Wells, who happens to also be the niece of famous author William Faulkner.
The foreword of the book doesn’t mention what inspired Wells to produce the cookbook. The foreword just says, “This cookbook is dedicated to the august body of men and women who governs and the people who voted for them.”
Herschler’s elk recipe landed in the poultry and game section of the cookbook and doesn’t include any real information about the recipe or its origins.
There’s a two-sentence rundown of the governor’s career: “Served in the Wyoming House of Representatives from 1960 to 1969. He was elected governor of the state in 1974 and re-elected in 1978. He is a Democrat.”
After which it plunges into an almost equally short and sweet recipe:
First marinate 1 pound of elk meat overnight in 7Up. Then slice the meat into 2 x 2 1/2-inch strips and brown them in one tablespoon of butter. Pour a 12-ounce can of beer over the browned slices along with 1/2 tsp of basil, and salt and pepper to taste. Cover and simmer the meat for 45 minutes until tender.
After that, add one package of mushroom gravy mix and stir it around until smooth. Simmer for just a little bit longer and serve.
That’s it, easy-peasy. It’s like an old, savvy grandma’s recipe. No muss, no fuss. And you know just from thinking it through that the dish is going to taste all right.
Seems Suspect
But, but, but …
Elk meat for the average consumer is actually a very pricy cut of meat these days, and that had Rea questioning the recipe. He also was suspicious of other aspects of the recipe.
“Wyoming, are elk so prevalent that you’re willing to bury their delicious flavor in prepackaged gravy mix?” he wrote alongside the video he made. “Asking for a friend. I’ve had similar dishes before, but with the cheapest cut of beef, which is what Ed Herschler says you can sub in with for this recipe.”
That had Rea questioning why anyone would use elk at all in such a recipe.
“I’m guessing in Wyoming he hunted it himself and it didn’t cost $30 per pound, that’s why,” he said. “I actually have some stories about elk hunting that you wouldn’t expect, but for now, I’ll just say I did NOT hunt this elk myself and it was expensive as hell to just taste like gravied-up salt beef — also … it was pretty good.”
In the video, Bennett vows to eat every bite of the expensive elk dish, despite panning the recipe for covering the wonderful elk taste with gravy.
“Right at the end when your house smells like a Route 66 roadhouse bar, you mix in a package of mushroom gravy, simmer a bit more, and taste Wyoming,” he says in the video as he prepares the elk.
“I liked it,” Bennett told Cowboy State Daily. “It was salty, but it felt like one of those kinds of simple, homemade dishes that my mom would make whenever I was a kid.
"Brown elk and beer made sense in like 90% of the way there. It’s just a pretty expensive cut of meat to be dousing with gravy.”
He also seemed disappointed when first trying the dish; not in the taste, but for burying the flavor of elk in a packaged gravy mix.
He said on the video that the recipe “essentially turned elk into a Bob Evans frozen beef-luck … to me, it’s sort-of like if you took caviar and said, ‘I think I’m going to make some fish stock out of caviar.’ The fish stock would be great, for sure, but why?"
That said, “I’m still eating all this — all of it."
Wyoming Hunters Don’t Pay $30 For Elk Steaks
Elk meat, however, doesn’t have to cost that much per pound if you’re a successful Wyoming elk hunter.
Alex Rienzie, who bagged a small elk cow in 2022, told Cowboy State Daily his meat only cost him around $5 per pound all told.
There was so much meat, he had to buy a new freezer to hold it all.
The quantity also inspired what he called elk nights, where he would invite 50 or so friends to come over and try a smorgasbord of elk recipes to clear out his freezer and use up the elk meat in a timely fashion.
In all, he’s tried 32 elk recipes, a number of which he’s posted at his blog, along with tasting notes.
“I only get the wild stuff,” Rienzie said. “The for sure conclusion is $5 a pound versus $30 bucks, right? It’s the luxury of living out here in Wyoming.”
Rienzie didn’t make any recipes similar to Herschler’s but said the recipe made some sense to him as someone who both hunts and cooks game meats.
“The key with elk I’ve found is a long marinade,” he said. “So something acidic right? Like for the chimichurri steaks, I think we did a really long orange marinade. And our marinades for the hibachi was I think lemon and ginger and other Japanese inspired spices.”
Lower quality meats benefitted from long and slow cooking as did ground meat, while high-quality steaks were best cooked quickly to no more than medium rare.
“The marinade is really the secret for the steaks,” he said. “The longer you marinate, the more it softens it up a little bit and the more flavors get infused, and then the gamy stuff gets offset by whatever you’re introducing.”
Herschler And Hunting
Wyoming columnist Rod Miller, who worked for Herschler’s office in the 1980s, says he doesn’t recall the governor ever making or serving brown elk in beer.
“The recipe makes sense,” Miller said. “It would probably work. I mean, I like elk a lot more than I like mule deer. And I like everything more than I like antelope. I don’t think antelope’s edible.”
Miller said most wild game benefits from having a marinade and some type of sauce with it.
Miller recalls going with Herschler several times to restaurants, where the governor had “very good table manners.”
The most memorable anecdote, however, was Miller’s initial meeting with Herschler.
“I met first with Dick Hartman, his state planning coordinator, and it’s like October, November, something like that,” Miller said. “And then Dick took me out to meet the governor for the final kind of, you know, arm pit sniffing.”
That meeting took place at the Cloud Nine Bar at the old airport in Cheyenne.
“He was holding court in the back of the bar,” Miller recalled. “So, I went and met the governor, and we had a nice talk and stuff.”
The talk didn’t last very long, however. Herschler caught sight of some hunters getting off the plane to come hunt in Wyoming.
“They had their guns and like gun cases and stuff,” Miller said. “And Herschler called them over the table and said, ‘Where are you going? Let me see what kind of gun you’ve got.’ And they were hauling their guns out and looking through them.”
There was absolutely no security around Herschel at the time.
“It was just me, Dick Hartman and probably Jerry Mickey and Bud Daly — the Carbon County mafia,” Miller said. “And he just handed these guns back and forth with these hunters.”
Miller doesn’t recall what Herschler was drinking. But the most likely candidate was a glass of Cabin Still whiskey.
“That was his favorite bourbon,” Miller said. “He was great friends with Al Simpson, and they used to joke back and forth about drinking Cabin Still.”
The Chef’s Take
Herschler’s recipe does do several things right, according to Wyoming chef, Petrina Peart.
Peart has made a name for herself in Wyoming with television appearances on reality television shows like Food Network’s “Beat Bobby Flay,” where the chef nearly beat Flay, and Martha Stewart’s “Yes, Chef!” where she was a finalist.
“I understand a little bit of the marinating in the sprite, especially with game meat,” Peart said. “I understand that’s probably going to break that protein down, which makes sense. It’s a little bit like adding some ginger to the meat to kind of let it marinate and break down the protein.”
Braising with beer or wine is another step that makes sense for game meats.
“I think it’s a pretty interesting take on it,” Peart said. “It’s a really fun and interesting recipe. And I do have a recipe that I use for venison and elk that the governor (Mark Gordon), it’s one of his favorites that I use here.”
That particular recipe is seasoned with lemon pepper, cayenne pepper, garlic, lime, onion and green pepper.
A little Worcestershire sauce adds an umami taste to the mix, and then some scallions and fresh herbs help finish it off.
“Cooking with (game meat) is just a matter of understanding that your leaner meats are going to require some fat, and then it doesn’t hurt to add some huckleberry, some crab apples, or something nice and sweet to just balance out the flavors in the recipe.”
Bonus Recipe From One Governor To Another
For those who’d like to try Gordon’s favorite recipe, as prepared by Chef Peart, here are the instructions:
Wild West-Chester Elk Wyoming Style
• 2 pounds of elk steak
• Pepper to taste
• 3/4 tsp lemon-pepper seasoning
• 1/4 tsp cayenne pepper
• 1/2 tsp salt
• Butter for the Dutch oven
• 1 or more cloves of garlic
• 3 slices of lime, chopped
• 2 cups chopped onion
• Some scallions
• 1 c. Chopped green pepper
• 1 tsp. Worcestershire sauce (hence the name)
• 1 cup Muscado or Pizano, according to taste
• Honeycrisp apples for garnish
Season the meat with salt and pepper. Brown garlic in butter in the Dutch oven, then add the seasoned elk steak. Add the rest of the ingredients except the apple slices. Cover, bring to boil quickly, then reduce heat, allowing the dish to simmer until the meat is tender, but not overcooked, about two hours. Serve topped with apple slices. Goes well with corn.
This recipe owes a lot to Jim Zumbo, who has a bunch of good venison recipes. Mine is a bit pepper forward (as they say on TV). Sometimes necessity is the mother of invention, and you have to go with what you have, not what you wish you had. And occasionally the results are tasty!
Renée Jean can be reached at renee@cowboystatedaily.com.
