It’s Wild!

Kaye Zubow hunts without a gun, traveling the world in search of venison, wild boar and other unusual menu fare to satisfy the nation’s growing appetite for game.

Zubow, founder and owner of Wild Game Inc., does just about everything but shoot the animal as she supplies fresh meat and fowl to amateur chefs and some of the country’s trendiest restaurants.

Zubow has been known to elbow her way onto the slaughtering line when she thought a processor was killing a bird in a way that might reduce its quality.

“It’s a weird thing to do, but it’s part of the food chain, people have to do it,” she said. “If you wear leather, there’s just no room for squeamishness.”

Wild Game’s products include venison from New Zealand, partridges from Scotland and wild boar from Australia. Most are farm-raised and sold fresh, not frozen, though some from overseas are animals that have been hunted in the wild. The firm doesn’t deal in so-called exotic meats not traditionally used as food, such as zebra.

Because game is generally considered a winter menu item, the holiday season is the small company’s biggest time of the year. None of the 14 employees are allowed to vacation from September to December.

“We can almost double our sales during the holidays compared to a week in July,” Zubow said. “It’s a celebratory time. What holiday is there that people don’t celebrate with food?”

At Christmas, quail and goose are Wild Game’s biggest sellers.

The company offers reindeer, mostly from Alaska, but it interests few chefs here, Zubow said. It tastes like venison. (In Scandinavia, however, reindeer is raised for meat by Laplanders.)

Zubow says a growing number of chefs are experimenting with game.

“Game has become increasingly popular for a number of reasons,” said Zanne Zakroff, Gourmet magazine’s executive food editor. “People prefer foods that are less highly processed and leaner,” she said. Game generally fills the bill.

“We have also become so much more sophisticated in our eating habits. In the last 10 years, Americans have become much more adventuresome. They’re willing to try different things,” Zakroff added.

Those who once rejected frozen game for its “gamy” flavor are discovering that fresh game is entirely different, Zubow said.

Sales at Wild Game, one of the few companies in the field, have steadily increased since Zubow launched it 9 1/2 years ago as a one-woman operation on a trial-and-error basis.

“I was driving into the country, picking up the bird, driving back into the city. As soon as I brought it in people were very receptive,” she said.

“Within six months I had such a thriving business that I was working seven days a week; it was just a matter of when could I stop to get some sleep,” said Zubow, 34, who had no previous experience in the industry.

By the end of the first year she had seven employees and some of Chicago’s top restaurants as customers. Her “couple of hundred” commercial customers now include hotels and caterers, she says.

Gabino Sotelino, head chef at Chicago’s Ambria, often ranked as one of the nation’s best restaurants and one of Wild Game’s first clients, calls Zubow “a true entrepreneur.”

“She has the guts to go to the farmers and tell them what the problems are,” Sotelino said.

Game is now shipped to the company since Zubow no longer has time to fetch it herself. But she still visits farms and processors to make sure game is raised to Wild Game specifications.