“I like making good food accessible to everyone — especially hunters.”

Chef Lewis moving a rack of game birds from the oven.DORSEY PICTURES

Southeast Louisiana is a dreamy place to grow up if your loves are diverse hunting opportunities and exceptional flavors. For Lance Lewis, the other key ingredient was having a father who took him to his hunting camp where nearby rivers, lakes, and bayous provided a smorgasbord of fish and game.

“Our family believed in honoring the game that we harvested by not wasting the meat,” he says. “Every animal dies, but if a hunter does his job well, an animal’s death is quick and painless—far different than the way most wild animals die.”

After graduating from the Cook Street School of Culinary Arts, Chef Lewis worked as an event caterer and chef instructor before founding Tagged Out Kitchen. RYAN LONG

After leaving Louisiana, Lewis joined the Navy and traveled extensively throughout Europe and the Middle East where he was exposed to many regional flavors that, at times, were reminiscent of the Cajun flavors of his youth.

It wasn’t until Lewis left the Navy and moved to Denver in the late ‘90s, however, that he found his culinary calling. After graduating from Denver’s Cook Street School of Culinary Arts, Lewis discovered his passion for teaching other chefs.

“I like making good food accessible to everyone — especially hunters,” he says. “As a chef instructor, I taught everything from animal butchery to specialized recipes.”

A perfectly prepared dish of quail in pomegranate sauceDORSEY PICTURES

As a hunter, he could also see that many of his fellow sportsmen and women had little knowledge about how to process and prepare their wild game. He saw this as a gap that he could help fill, which led him to create Tagged Out Kitchen, a business that helps hunters and wild game aficionados celebrate the many virtues of free range meat — the original organic protein. As the locavore movement gains steam across the country for its many health and environmental benefits, Lewis sees the launch of his new enterprise as benefitting from opportune timing.

“Tagged Out Kitchen is about sustainability and knowing where your food comes from,” he says. “I want to teach hunters and others about the amazing flavors of wild game, how to prepare it properly, and enjoy the health benefits of these lean proteins that are hormone and steroid free.”

As one of Lewis’ students, I watched him prepare roast quail, grilled duck, and elk loin, and was captivated by the affable chef’s ability to impart his plethora of secrets for transforming wild game into gourmet delicacies. He is a natural teacher and his passion for the outdoor lifestyle makes him a unique chef who is on a mission to teach America to celebrate the magic of wild game.

A feast for the senses as elk loin is plated with sauce and herbsDORSEY PICTURES

Lewis’ gift for teaching and his prowess for wild game has caught the attention of companies looking to reach America’s 15 million hunters with their products that range from seasonings and marinades to grills and smokers. As brand ambassadors go, Lewis blends knowledge with a passion for teaching that makes him attractive to a wide variety of cooking and food companies looking to captivate consumers in a memorable way.

Hear the term Tagged Out Kitchen and you might think it’s a slightly cheeky name of a restaurant, but it’s really an ethos at the heart of Lewis’ teaching philosophy. As he moves around the country to teach at hunting lodges and ranches, he’s focused on sharing what he learned at a young age — that true hunters not only refine their field skills to make an animal’s death as painless as possible, but they also honor the fallen game by the way they use every bit of the animal. That, and they give back to conservation to make sure that we pass our wildlife and hunting heritage on to the next generation.

For Lewis, that’s a main course always on the menu.

Peppered with ample anecdotes, personal memories and experiences, the wisdom of wonderful cooks, and recipes reflective of the overall high-country culinary experience, Casada’s book brings these culinary tales to life. Buy Now