The urbanized whitetails around here get so thick and cylindrical and they just stand there daring you take a shot in city limits in the off season. My uncle would, but I’m a wuss.
I have remarked aloud at how the Canada geese lounge around in the park like whores on a pillow of fat, and how well one would fit into a roasting dish. Wife looks at me like I’m an idiot. I’m not sure if it’s because that they would fit into a roasting pan as if the pan were designed for it, or because she knows what salmonella factories they are, or because she hates goose because of all the goose grease.
If any of my extended family lived further north, I probably would have eaten it by now. The only difference I see between, say, beef and reindeer is local availability.
Since I’ve eaten deer, buffalo, ostrich, snails, and would have tried horse if I had had the chance while in Europe I see no reason why I’d pass up reindeer.
There is a Far Side cartoon that features Santa at his typewriter writing “Nine Recipes for Venison” (or something close to that). I’ve always wanted to know what the recipes were.
I’ve had alligator, crocodile, buffalo, elk, ostrich, venison, wild boar, antelope, skate, and probably a few others I’ve forgotten. I wanted to try kangaroo, but the restaurant was out of it. Reindeer/caribou is certainly in my future plans.
Bernard Hubbard, the great Jesuit explorer of southwest Alaska, related a story of how he and his companions had to eat their pack dogs when they found themselves in dire straits. It happens.
mrAru chimed in and mentioned he particularly liked the reindeer jerky he bought in Tromso [the Paris of the North] Norway the times the sub pulled in there. He also said that farmed reindeer is good, and compares quite favorably to quality beef, and the wild reindeer meat is very much like excellent deer … he very much misses the Navy taking him to places he can try new and interesting foods…
I’ve never understood what was so special about reindeer. They weren’t picked to pull Santa’s sleigh because the were cute or docile. They just happen to be around his location. I mean, I sorta get that you don’t like eating animals you see around you all the time, because you get emotionally attached to one, so the species itself seems off limits. But the places where reindeer actually are wind up eating them the most.
I eat reindeer quite often, actually, mostly smoked but also like any other meat. My parents order it through a company called Deliporo which delivers it from Lapland; they got half a reindeer in various bits and pieces a few weeks ago and I immediately went to loot their freezer. I find it delicious: very dark and lean.
Yes. I don’t eat primates, I don’t eat warm-blooded carnivores, I don’t eat endangered species unless it’s okay by the conservation plan, and I don’t eat more intelligent animals unless that species has attempted to hurt or kill my family first. (Pigs and cows have inflicted plenty of injury on my farming family, so I can eat them even if I hear pigs are passing the mirror test nowadays. But no one I know has been hurt by an octopus, and I know they’re clever, so I don’t get any tako. I avoid veal, but that’s more a problem with the dairy industry than anything else.)
Reindeer aren’t primates, are herbivores, aren’t endangered as far as I know, and as herd animals aren’t all that smart (in my experience with other herd animals) so I’d love to give reindeer venison a try.
I do limit my intake of meat that I don’t know or deeply trust the producers thereof, so reindeer isn’t likely to appear on my menu anytime soon. But if I was offered it, I’d certainly give it a try.
Hmmm… Google hasn’t turned up any places selling kosher reindeer/caribou. Kosher elk, yes, but no reindeer. I see a market opening for shochets in Alaska.
