A walk on the wild side
January 06, 2010
LEFT: Anyone who said there is no free lunch at Targhee has never hung out behind the Trap Bar with this stout little guy who worked his way through the better part of a plate of nachos on Saturday afternoon. Apparently his species is not a PBR drinker. CITIZEN PHOTO / HOPE STRONG
When I was around 20-years old, I was working at the Air National Guard unit to which I belonged as a member of its admin staff. One day, I was offered a bite of stew by a more senior enlisted co-worker.
I examined the meat on the large spoon.
“What kind of meat is that?”
“It’s venison.”
“What is that?”
“It’s deer meat.”
“Oh. Um, I don’t think I like deer meat.”
Indeed, my mouth had gone dry at the recollection I was experiencing. I had eaten venison before, long ago, around the age of six. It had been prepared by my maternal grandmother. I was telling this to my co-worker and describing to him what I remembered about it. The meat was dry and had a strange fl avor to it. He explained to me that this is the “gaminess” of the meat.
I’m sure he felt a little like Annie Sullivan to my Helen Keller. He further explained that if any kind of game meat is prepared improperly, it will inevitably taste terrible.
He then made a suggestion that had never occurred to me. “Maybe your grandma is just a really bad cook.”
While I started to wrap my head around this possibility and began to realize that it explained a lot, a fresh spoonful of the stew appeared before me. “Just try it,” he said, and so I did.
I have always been an adventurous eater. For my high school graduation celebration dinner, I ate partridge at Botin in Madrid, a famous haunt of Hemingway’s and reportedly the oldest restaurant in the world. I ordered partridge because I had never seen it on a menu before. In South Korea at the age of sixteen, I embraced everything that was offered to my palate. My favorite kind of kimchi is cucumber. Of course, I haven’t had it since 1986, but I still remember enjoying it, along with bulgogi, gejang, and the wide variety of guksu dishes that are offered there.
Yet, from all of the places I have had the good fortune to visit growing up; I was missing out on a component of American fare that defi nes many regions of our country: game meat. Yes, this is due in large part to the experience in my grandma’s kitchen. But mostly, I was not truly exposed to many people that actually hunted for food. After that bite of venison stew, I took more notice of the hunters around me. I lived in Washington State, and was able to try more venison, elk, wild turkey, duck and pheasant. I have bit down on buckshot a couple of times.
I think mounting a head is unnecessary. But then again, I am not a hunter. I did not hone the skills it takes to locate a large mammal, sight it, and take it down. I do not have the talent it takes to fi eld dress anything, nor do I have the wherewithal to drag something that size out of the forest and on to the butcher. Although I will never understand the necessity of hanging onto a head as evidence of one’s hunting prowess, I do understand at least one thing about hunting: the trophy head you are gazing upon was once attached to a body that fed a family. Hunting is a method in which to keep one’s freezer full, and it is one of the most ancient methods of keeping oneself and one’s family fed.
Of course, there are others out there that are not the omnivore that I am. There are those that disagree with hunting, and with meat eating of all kinds. That is okay with me. I believe in checks and balances. I can agree to disagree. I can loathe a hunting trophy and still eat a moose burger or use ground antelope in my lasagna. I can devour a salad sans meat and be perfectly satisfied. I can sing the praises of eggplant as much as I can appreciate nicely done venison.
There is a movement afoot that encourages us to pay more attention to where food comes from. This is designed to help the economy by prodding us to buy local, but it is also to stir an awareness of the chain of events that took place to get the food on your plate. How was the animal butchered? Was it handled cleanly? Was it frozen, then thawed, then frozen again? The questions regarding the measures that were taken to achieve the final result are endless. For those hunters that are feeding their families, this cycle is laid bare in a simple fashion. There were fortunate enough to find the animal, shoot it legally, have it butchered locally, and see it in their freezer poised to provide.
I do not judge them any more than I judge a person who chooses to be a vegetarian. I’ve got news for you: you don’t have to be a hunter to enjoy game meat, and you don’t have to develop an all vegetable diet to appreciate what a garden has to offer. It is all about freedom of lifestyle and of personal choice, and as far as I am concerned, there is room for all of us at the table.
