On Thu, 19 Aug 2004 14:18:38 -0500, Mark Lipton >
wrote:

>Bill Spohn wrote:
>
>
>> Beware, though. If an animal dies in fear for its life, you get a rush of
>> adrenalin or some such that makes the meat taste strange - had a calf that fell
>> off a pickup at the farm when we were moving it and broke it's neck - there
>> followed the year (or damn near it) of odd tasting roasts - the ones we didn't
>> manage to give away to friends, at least.
>
>Tch, Bill. Have you never been apprised of the goings-on at
>slaughterhouses? Those roasts at your butcher are from animals gently
>euthanized? Back to Upton Sinclair for you, Bill! ;-)
>
>>
>> Guess you have to sneak up on them and whack 'em quick - at least that's what
>> an elderly European farmer of wild boar tells me. Here, piggie, piggie......
>
>Living here in the semi-rural Midwest, there is more than the occasional
>car/deer contact on the roads hereabouts. A good friend who is a deer
>hunter has been known to throw the accidentally clipped buck into the
>back of the pickup (carefully tagging it, of course!), and some usually
>finds its way to our freezer. Alas, corn-fed whitetail deer is not
>nearly gamey enough for the likes of me (having been permanently spoiled
>by my introduction to Rehrücken in Germany at age 9, though the
>grass-fed red deer of NZ came close) but still goes well with the vinous
>contents of the Stygian depths of Maison Lipton.
>
>Mark Lipton

As a hunter and no friend of PETA, I might offer some comment. I've
heard the stories of the adrenaline damaged game, but will suggest
that it doesn't track with my experiences on mule deer, elk (wapiti)
and pronghorn antelope.

I've been fortunate (and maybe skilled enough) to make a lot of one
shot kills--the greatest percentage, and that is the goal of a good
hunter. But, occasionally there have been animals who didn't drop on
command and took some tracking and additional persuasion before their
demise. It shouldn't and doesn't happen with regularity.

My experience has been that there is no difference in taste between
game that has been instantaneously dispatched through the wilderness
portal of the pearly gates and game which has been wounded and pursued
before demise.

What really makes a difference with game is the method of butchering.
Gamey taste comes from bone dust, bone marrow and fat/gristle in the
meat. For the last fifteen years, I've insured that all my game meat
is boned and cleaned before packing and freezing. No bone saws ever!

The result is lean, solid meat that I've successfully foisted off on
friends who assert that they "hate" game. They get "beef"
bourgonionne, "steak" diane, "beef" wellington, and medallions of
whatzit without being any the wiser. They think they're eating the
finest milk-fed veal in the case of pronghorn, the tenderest of young
beef when fed mule deer, and the finest marbled Angus when dining on
elk.

And, it all goes quite nicely with a big Russian River PN, a
full-throttle Aussie Shiraz, a fruit-bomb zindandel, or almost
anything else that is appropriate for the preparation of the game du
jour.


Ed Rasimus
Fighter Pilot (USAF-Ret)
"When Thunder Rolled"
"Phantom Flights, Bangkok Nights"
Both from Smithsonian Books
***www.thunderchief.org