Learn about the natural history of central Florida in the most interactive way possible--A Wild Game Feast in Brooklyn. To raise money for a documentary-in-the-making, Swamp Cabbage co-creators Julie Kahn and Hayley Downs are hosting an event at Hugs in Williamsburg, Brooklyn on March 8th from 5-8 pm.

Hayley Downs explained to me a while ago what a Florida Cracker really is: "It's a person who lives off the land, survives in the Florida wilderness, and stretches -- or ignores -- the law to fit their life." Downs's own grandfather was a Cracker who hunted in the Everglades and sold what he caught to make a living; he was considered a poacher, but to him it was just getting dinner. And Downs's father, Albert, who also hunted and fished the scrublands and wetlands of central Florida, was a Cracker too, though he had a day job. He also founded the Albert D. Downs Wild Game Feast, held each May for the past 16 years in DeLand, Florida, to help keep the Florida Cracker tradition alive; rattlesnake, wild turkey, alligator, wild pig, and frogs' legs are regular features on the feast's menu.

Florida's wilderness, along with the people who it sustains, have been the real losers in the real estate boom and bust there. This film and fundraiser are a celebration of nature's bounty and rugged people.

(As well, there's going to be a jerk off with competing venison and wild boar jerky.)