Food Afield

Food Afield Food Afield™ is a wild food podcast about hunting, fishing, foraging, and cooking seasonal ingredients. Hosted by John Fraser

Learn how to find, harvest, and prepare wild food in real conditions.

This photograph isn’t really about the hunt. It’s about everything that came before and after.Over the past five decades...
07/22/2026

This photograph isn’t really about the hunt. It’s about everything that came before and after.

Over the past five decades, hunting, fishing, and foraging have taught me that the real skill isn’t just releasing an arrow or setting a hook.

It’s learning to notice.

To read a landscape.
To understand seasons.
To care for what you’ve harvested.
To turn wild ingredients into memorable meals.

Food Afield grew out of those years in the field.

It’s where I share the lessons, stories, field skills, and wild food that have shaped my life—so others can build their own.

If you’ve ever wanted to become more capable outdoors, I’d be glad to have you along.

FoodAfield.com …the link is in the bio.

📸 by Kevin Kossowan

I thought hunting was the skill.Then I had to learn to cut meat.Every animal teaches another skill.Then I learned to shu...
07/22/2026

I thought hunting was the skill.

Then I had to learn to cut meat.

Every animal teaches another skill.

Then I learned to shuck oysters.

Then how to prepare what I gathered.

Eventually, gathering became cooking.

That’s what my first deer really gave me.

There are episodes that teach. And there are episodes that remind you what it felt like to be learning.This is one of th...
07/17/2026

There are episodes that teach. And there are episodes that remind you what it felt like to be learning.

This is one of those.

Kevin and I spent a few autumn days wandering Alberta’s grasslands in search of cranes, geese, and sharp-tailed grouse. Listening back years later, I’m struck by how many of the ideas that shape Food Afield today were already there.

We talk about being beginners.

About missing shots.

About lowering expectations.

And about discovering that one bird can be enough if you come home having learned something.

If you’ve joined Food Afield recently, this is an early chapter in the story…

New Podcast Episode — Learning the Grasslands is available now. Link in bio.

There are two ways to move through a landscape.One is with your feet.The other is with your attention.Most people arrive...
07/10/2026

There are two ways to move through a landscape.

One is with your feet.

The other is with your attention.

Most people arrive somewhere and immediately start walking. They cover ground, hoping to stumble into a deer, a trout, or a patch of mushrooms.

I used to do the same.

Now, one of the first things I do is sit.

Not because I’m tired. Because I can’t really read a place while I’m moving through it.

When you stop, things begin to separate.

You notice the slower current behind a boulder.

The wind that’s consistent instead of the gust that caught your attention.

The birds that have settled back into their normal routines.

The game trail you walked past because your eyes were on the horizon.

Walking helps you find new country.

Standing still helps you understand it.

I’ve come to believe those are two different skills.





I don’t sit here because I’m tired.I sit here because landscapes reveal themselves slowly.A game trail isn’t just a path...
07/10/2026

I don’t sit here because I’m tired.

I sit here because landscapes reveal themselves slowly.

A game trail isn’t just a path. A river isn’t just water. Wind isn’t just weather.

Every place has a rhythm. If you arrive talking, moving, and searching, you’ll miss it.

The first thing I hunt is understanding.

There are two ways to move through a landscape.

One is with your feet.

The other is with your attention.

Most people arrive somewhere and immediately start walking. They cover ground, hoping to stumble into a deer, a trout, or a patch of mushrooms.

I used to do the same. Now, one of the first things I do is sit.

Not because I’m tired. Because I can’t really read a place while I’m moving through it.

When you stop, things begin to separate.

You notice the slower current behind a boulder.

The wind that’s consistent instead of the gust that caught your attention.

The birds that have settled back into their normal routines.

The game trail you walked past because your eyes were on the horizon.

Walking helps you find new country.

Standing still helps you understand it.

Two completely different skills that are often conflated.

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More than a quarter of a century ago I built this bow from a gnarly vine maple stave. It was the first bow I ever made.I...
07/01/2026

More than a quarter of a century ago I built this bow from a gnarly vine maple stave. It was the first bow I ever made.

I built it because I’ve always been drawn to making things with my own hands.

Over the years that’s meant bows, arrows, quivers, crab traps, pipes, and countless other pieces of equipment.

The magic in this process is that I’ve realized that making something changes the way I experience the outdoors.

When I carry this bow into the woods, the hunt doesn’t begin when I nock an arrow. It began the day I started roughing out the stave.

Every scrape of the drawknife.
Every tillering adjustment.
Every hour spent shaping it…finishing it.

The harvest, when it comes, is only one chapter in a much longer story.

For me, that’s the real value of making your own equipment.

It doesn’t just change what you carry.

It changes your relationship with the outdoors.

06/19/2026

Most people start by looking for clams.

I usually start by looking for clues.

On this beach, the clue was oyster-covered rocks. Nearby, there was a sheltered sand flat with all the signs I look for when searching for Manila clams.

The best foragers, hunters, and anglers aren’t always covering more ground.

They’re often reading the landscape more carefully.

What clues do you look for first?

06/19/2026

The lake looked empty.

But of course it wasn’t. We knew that.

One of the things I’m learning through Food Afield is that the landscape is almost always more alive than it first appears.

You just have to know where to look. Shift your perspective, even if it’s only a few inches.

06/18/2026

This was a wild mule deer buck deep in the backcountry.

He saw me.

He watched me.

Then he went back to feeding.

Wild animals aren’t reacting to our existence every second of the day.

They’re constantly evaluating risk.

The difference between being noticed and being perceived as a threat is often smaller than people think.


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