Great question.

I've never heard of anything written on the subject you talk about but there was a guy from New Jersey at Rutgers University by the name of Dr. Lacandro who also worked for fish and game there. He was a professor of Meat Science at Rutgers.

I met him once about 22 years ago and he may be retired by now.

I've hunted and cooked my venison for years and I'll tell you there are many different effects the environment and how you take your deer can change the taste of your deer.

When a deer is killed totally by surprise the meat will not have any adrenaline in it and thus a better tasting deer. I did read an article about this fact many years ago in one of the popular magazines (Sports Afield, Outdoor Life or Field and Stream). I did kill a doe like this once that was feeding also on a lot of corn. I was walking down the corn rows one by one and there she was laying right in one of the rows, I could tell she was a healthy deer and shot once with 00 buck. The deer didn't move, just her head dropped to the ground and that was it. A pellet had hit her brain. Well I'll tell you that that was the best tasting deer I've ever had. Tender and sweet.

As far as fat she had a lot of it but deer fat is not marbled in the meat and fat deer or skinny all you do is separate the fat from the outside portions of the meat and there you have it, fresh lean venison. I've also killed other deer that had been feeding on a lot of corn and when cutting chops from the loin area left a little of the fat on. These deer tasted a lot like beef and some people that I prepared them for could not tell the difference and thought that they were eating beef.

That is the beauty of this meat. The fat is not in the meat. It collects on the out side of the meat.

Also Venison as compared to Beef, where fat is marbled into the meat, will not turn to sugar in your body after you eat it. This is why venison is so much better for you than beef.

I've also shot a winter bow season deer with absolutely no fat on it at all and took the ribs which are usually layered, fat-meat-fat-meat, and took all the meat off the bones and ground it up like hamburger. It was so tender and so sweet that I named and you heard it here first, BAMBURGER!!!!

Another thing about deer is the preparation of the meat and deer can be aged like beef unlike bear which had to be cut as soon as possible for the longer it hangs the tougher and dryer it gets. You can hang your venison for up to 5 weeks just like beef and the longer you hang it the tenderer it gets. Tempuratures should be a steady 40 degrees F when hanging.

I know these things because I hunted for years and butchered and prepared my own meat all that time. My mother and father both cooked because we had 10 kids in the family. My Mother was a chef in her own right and I also have a brother who works for the Hyatt in New Brunswick, New Jersey as one of their best Chefs. We all learned how to cook watching Ma do her thing in the kitchen.

If you catch the deer live and do bit of massaging you may be able to get a tenderer cut that way. This may be a difficult job though but would be well worth it.


GOOD LUCK AND BON APPETITE






GOD BLESS
Charlie Patrick
Eastern Ontario Guided Adventures http://www3.sympatico.ca/chazpat/wildcanada.html


Edited by - droptine on 11/18/2002 04:25:32