Finding His Calling

Nikolaj Juel is a father, husband, hunter, tracker, food writer and chef at an organic farm in Denmark. He learned to love the outdoors at a young age, but he hasn’t always been the cookbook-writing head chef he is today.

In his twenties, he left for London with a guitar on his back to pursue a career in music. “I was a badass guitarist.” he likes to say, and casually added, “I’ve played with guys like Jason Mraz and Cat Stevens and James Morrison.”

But it was there in the outskirts of London, in one of Jamie Oliver’s kitchens, that Nikolaj really learned how to cook fish and game meat.

When he moved back to Denmark, his experience landed him a head chef position at a large organic farm, where he discovered how to combine his talent for cooking with his passion for hunting and tracking.

The Hunt Is On

My voice lowered when Nikolaj took the rifle off his back and peered through the scope. “I’ve never done anything like this,” I told him. “I’m not even sure how I feel about it.”

Briefly, Nikolaj broke his gaze to give me a reassuring look. As he turned back he said, “I love hunting, but I don’t think that everyone should own a gun.”

“What does that mean?” I asked.

“Hunting is a way of preserving nature,” he explained. “If a deer population becomes too dense or grows out of control, it’s much more likely that the group develops diseases, and that places the entire population under more stress.”

He went on… “I would never hunt a roebuck or a fallow deer that I see has potential to have healthy babies. I hunt selectively. You’re actually helping to maintain the deer population by culling the older or weaker from the group. It makes sense to go out and help maintain the balance of nature, and that’s what I’m a part of when I go hunting.”

I had never thought of it this way. Growing up in the suburbs, I always figured hunting was just a culture I didn’t connect with. But here with Nikolaj, among the wilderness, it made sense. Sometimes I think we view hunting as an evil act, but when done responsibly, it’s really more of a balancing act that provides a sustainable source of food.

Back at the Campsite

The hunt was over sooner than anyone expected. Even Nikolaj was surprised by how quickly it passed. We were making our way back to the campsite carrying a fallow deer when he started telling me about his cookbook, Walk on the Wild Side

“A lot of the hunting community in Denmark, they don’t really know how to cook the game they shoot. They have, like, one recipe,” he laughed.

“I kind of wanted to do a different take on it, because I love all kinds of different food. So my partner [Columbus Leth] and I made a game cookbook with lots of recipes inspired by different culinary approaches–Japanese, Mexican, Nordic and Italian culture.”

There at the campsite, he handed me a copy of his cookbook to check out while he and his crew began prepping the meal. I flipped through page by page in awe, not recognizing a single dish in the 300-page book.

There was pappardelle pasta with wild boar, duck beast with polenta, and pheasant ragu in bianco. All recipes crafted specifically to show hunters and anglers a vast range of approaches for preparing game, fish, and wild ingredients. All conceived and perfected by a man who was clearly hungry for something different than your average dish.