In another thread, Wikket said that most people (presumably meaning Americans) don’t eat deer.
Even when I lived in the depths of New Jersey, most people I
knew had eaten venison at one time of another. Most people don’t eat it regularly unless they have hunters in the family of course, but its common for hunters to give away meat to their neighbors, coworkers etc. I’ve never heard anyone who thought there was anything unusual about that, or who would turn it down if offered.
Mine is pretty much the same as yours: sometimes we’ll spot venison being offered at a resturant and eat it there, but normally we get ours from friends/family/coworkers who bagged themselves too many deer for them to eat without going nutso.
Mmmm. Nice venison roast with lots of garlic. (I tend to pass on the steaks though: it’s been my experience that it’s too hard to cook 'em right.)
Everybody I know has eaten deer at least a few times, and many eat it routinely. I live in the sticks, and there’s many more deer within 50 miles of here than there are people.
I suspect the consumption of deer meat varies a great deal with the area one lives in.
PS: Just last week, my truck ate a deer. That’s another very common occurence around here. :mad:
I like deer and would eat it regularily if I had an abundent supply. However, I prefer moose (or as we call them, swamp donkey). I could easily eat moose in place of beef as a part of my regular diet. Unfortunately, IGA doesn’t sell moose meat so I have to rely on my hunting friends for my supply.
Venison made frequent appearances on our table when I was growing up in Louisiana, along with squirrel and rabbit. It still shows up fairly often when I go back for visits–several hunters in the extended family keep the supply up. Fried venison steak with rice and brown gravy is a particular favorite. I usually avoid ground venison, though–it’s often cut with tallow, and the texture puts me off and makes leftovers almost inedible.
Well, I’m vegetarian so I naturally don’t eat deer. OTOH when I ate meat, I was as willing to eat it as any other type of meat. The same goes for my sister. The rest of my family will quite happily eat it, and I’ve never met anyone who had a specific problem with eating deer.
I’ve eaten deer once, I was told it was beef. The person who tricked me thought it was great that I ate it and made a big deal out of how foolish I’d been to reject the idea of eating it in the first place, but I’d actually gotten through the meal thinking she was the worst cook ever because it was such horrible tasting meat. Therefore, I will never eat deer again because I don’t like it. However, if I’d had my own way (and not been tricked), I would have never eaten deer in the first place.
I’ve had that experience several times by people who claim “it tastes just like beef.” No, it doesn’t. Not at all.[sup]*[/sup] The first two times, I thought they were bad (though why it didn’t occur to me that messing up spaghetti sauce is a near impossible task, I’ll never know.) Of course, when I didn’t spit it out on the ground upon the first bite , the switchers announced with pleased with themselves grins that I simply couldn’t tell.
Pity that I was raised by people who drilled into my head that when you are a guest, and the food you are being given is not actually hazardous to your well being, you smile while you eat it, and you absolutely do not complain that the food is not to your liking. And the same spirit of general politeness kept me from telling them what they could do with the damn venison. Since time two (the nastiest “hamburgers” I’d ever had). I’m pretty sure that I’ve caught every other time, but who knows.
[sup]*When I’ve been in Canada, the beef has tasted not entirely unlike venison, which is why I don’t order beef there anymore.[/sup]
I live in NEPA, and we have a lot of hunters, but since I was raised never eating deer meat, it’s not something I want to do. I have a hard time seeing that cute little deer in the back yard being served for dinner. I know it’s silly.
Once I was at a friends house, she was making chili, when she asked me to try some to see what I thought. I told her it was good and she said she just wanted to make sure it didn’t taste different since she used deer meat. I puked.
I love venison. Would happily eat it all the time if I could. There’s a butcher shop a few miles from me that sells it during hunting season for those of us that don’t hunt or can’t and a lot of the hunters I know will trade deer steak to me for a box of shells. Bless there little hearts.
My son won’t eat beef steak for some reason but he loves deer and my daughter will make a pig of herself given the chance. Since I don’t hunt anymore (the cost of it has gotten outrageous) that doesn’t happen nearly enough.
Damn. Now I have to go make some calls and see if I can find someone who still has some in their freezer.
Not that I’ve ever eaten venison, but I have prepared it - it shouldn’t taste like beef, but a good cut of venison should taste good, not “gamey”. The taste varies greatly depending on things like what the deer had been eating (deer that eat corn and apples taste better than ones that have to forage in the scrub of a swamp, etc.), how quickly it was killed (apparently too much adrenaline production can affect the meat taste, or so hunters tell me), and so on.
My husband hunts deer and eats it regularly, and sometimes we just get a bad-tasting batch of meat. Preparing it exactly the same as you would beef isn’t a good idea either, as it does have a different taste. I recommend buying a cookbook that has recipes especially for venison; that helps a lot.
We live in the Chicago suburbs; hunting isn’t popular among people here, and comparatively few have had venison.
I’ve eaten deer meat. Some I’ve had was very gamey-tasting. Some, pan-fried “chops”, were very mild. I’d eat it if I had some, but I’m not a hunter. I would not turn down venison given to me, and I’d buy it if it were sold in the market.
I believe that the way you field-dress, skin, handle, and butcher the deer makes a HUGE difference in how it tastes in the end. Leave the guts in too long, or leave the pelt on too long, or let it stay warm too long, and the natural bacteria grow and change the taste considerably. If you’re not careful with those tarsal glands, you’re going to end up seasoning the carcass with musk, which is the perfect recipie for “gamey” meat. And don’t get me started about those fools who just strap it onto the top of their pickup (pelt and all) and drive 90 miles to get home.
But dress, skin, and butcher it right, and you’ve got some good eating.
I love venison, and make a point to never buy beef at the grocery store. Venison is so much leaner than beef, and actually has flavor rather than just that greasy fat taste that you get with beef.
From my perspective, the biggest bonus about venison that I got myself is that I know what that deer has been through a lot more than I know about the hypothetical cow that I’d be eating. I know it wasn’t cooped up in a pen for the majority of its life. I know it wasn’t given growth hormones to bulk up faster. I know it wasn’t fed on antibiotics or ground carcass for all of its natural life. I know that I washed all my tools and my hands when I butchered it. And I know just how long it has been sitting in the freezer.
And for the record, feeding something to your guests and telling them it’s something different is cruel and insensitive. Miss Manners would definitely not approve. On the other hand, barfing the chili back up only after you find out that it was ground Bambi instead of ground Bessie is just silly, Dragongirl. :rolleyes:
This year, I took gutted my deer in the woods right away. Then I took it straight from the weigh station to the butcher shop. They have lots of deer there so they freeze my animal first, and get to butchering it later.
So, basically, it was never hung in a cool place to prepare the meat. But, it tasted great.
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And for the record, feeding something to your guests and telling them it’s something different is cruel and insensitive. Miss Manners would definitely not approve. On the other hand, barfing the chili back up only after you find out that it was ground Bambi instead of ground Bessie is just silly, Dragongirl. :rolleyes:
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I agree that it is wrong to trick people into eating “mystery meat”. (I mean that the subject doesn’t know what it is, not that nobody does.) And I agree that it was silly for Dragongirl to vomit just because she found out it was deer. But I have a twisted sense of humour. Suppose the host had said, “Well, it’s not beef at all! It’s my baby who died suddenly last night. Waste not, want not!”? I’d probably puke in that case.
I’ve had deer sausage at a street market where they were giving away free samples, and the occasional nibble from my dad’s plate at a restaurant. It was OK, but I can’t say I like it enough to order it myself (at least not if there’s seafood on the menu).
I have to say, however, that I’m really bewildered by the general conservatism of Americans when it comes to meat; there do seem to be a lot of people out there who have never had anything other than beef, chicken, or pork.
How is it silly if it’s her natural inclination to puke? I doubt if she stuck her finger down her throat and made herself vomit. It would be the same if I ordered a steak at a restaurant, got halfway through it, and suddenly discovered it were dog meat, or suddenly discovered it had a pus-covered band-aid on the underbelly. My body will revolt out of sheer disgust. How is that silly?
That works. A lot better than driving home with it tied to your roof, or letting it sit out in the field, in the sun, while you send junior back home (1/2 hour drive) to get the pickup truck.
Good Lord… :eek: I’m speechless. Yeah, I’d puke as well. But there’s just no comparison… oh, never mind I’m not about to argue this point.
And fish, of course. But you’re right, and it is very sad. {Suddenly the song “Bear Necessities” from Disney’s Jungle Book pops into my head… looking longingly at the ants on the sidewalk out front…}
The pus-covered sore is not at all comparable - infections and poor treatment are certainly reasons to be ill. What’s silly is the fact that people are so divorced from what they are eating that they have no idea where it comes from, and somehow convince themselves that their main staples of beef/chicken/pork are somehow fundamentally different from the rest. What’s silly is that people who have no experience about how food is prepared have such an extreme reaction to something they know so little about. (if it happens that Dragongirl works in the food processing business, I’ll publically apologize… but I think my odds are pretty good here).
Would you barf if someone told you they weren’t really onions in your soup, but chives? If that cheese was made from goat milk instead of cow milk? If that was an omlett from emu egg instead of a chicken eggs? That’s not really white crab meat, but pollock? (well, maybe if you were allergic.) Otherwise it’s silly. :rolleyes:
This isn’t a GD or Pit thread, so that’s as far as I’ll go. So here’s your chance - you’re welcome to have the last word on the subject if you wish.
(I tend to pass on the steaks though: it’s been my experience that it’s too hard to cook 'em right.)