A SEASON OF WILD GAME
Preparing and cooking venison, including recipes for venison stew with dried cranberries, mashed root vegetables, venison chili, venison steaks and jerky.
October/November 1994
Anne Vassal
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Whether you're trying to control your household food budget or just interested in tasting what is fast becoming a national favorite, venison will prove to be an inexpensive and versatile meal for your table.
I'm the last person that you'd want to invite on a hunting trip. It isn't because of my lack of enthusiasm at the prospect of killing those cute little deer or because I'm not equipped to pack a mean lunch. The truth is I just end up being a royal pain (or so my relatives say). For instance, I'm busy tripping over logs when silence is critical. I accidentally drop the thermos out of the tree stand (or I fall out of the tree stand), causing every creature within 50 miles to flee. Of course I require frequent bathroom breaks after all that coffee. And to top it off, I'm always cold. But every year, here we are in northern Wisconsin on our relatives' farm, wearing neon orange and combing the woods for signs of deer. I'm determined to be a good sport so I usually tag along with my husband whose greatest fear is that as soon as the ten-point buck is two feet away, I'll no longer be able to control myself and yell, "Run for your life!"
Sure, I'm an animal lover, and you might well ask how I juxtapose that opinion with serving meat on the table, but the issues of how and why you get by in the country can't be summed up so simply. Once you've spent some time living in a moderately forbidding wilderness (in our case, the upper peninsula of Michigan), your perspective may be altered. Hunting for food quickly becomes a matter of economic survival. Growing our own produce and hunting for meat helps to stretch food dollars in an area where quality food at a reasonable price is simply not always available.
While game hunting may not be the rage everywhere, game eating is becoming the trend — with venison consumption doubling nationwide in the last four years. Many of the Midwest's upscale restaurants are featuring American cuisine using regional foods, including game, and with good reason. Game meat is lower in fat, with a four-ounce serving of venison containing only four grams of fat as opposed to an equal serving of beef with 17 grams of fat. A deer has only 5% body fat compared to 25% for domestic animals because game are on the run. Some of the fat is the highly unsaturated omega-3 type, originally thought to be found only in fish.
Venison is also a high-protein meat, containing iron, zinc, and many B vitamins. Obviously, game is raised naturally so it's free of the injected growth hormones, antibiotics, and dyes. Finally, the best part is the flavor. We've domesticated the flavor right out of our meat — consequently becoming heavy handed with the salt shaker to compensate.
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