The inlaws came to see us for Thanksgiving, and brought with them a cooler full of venison and bear meat from the great white north. I've never eaten bear meat, and wonder if anyone has some suggestions for how to prepare it?

Thanks,

Chuck Mission4me

-- chuck in md (woah@mission4me.com), December 09, 2001

Answers

My dad went bear hunting once when I was a little kid. I seem to remember that my mom prepared the meat like she did pork. The taste was similar, but quite strong. Last time my dad ever shot a bear as none of us really liked it. Perhaps we did not cook/season it correctly.

-- ellie (eagle-quest@juno.com), December 09, 2001.

It tends to be gamey and the best way I've found is to make stew out of it. Slow cooker with potatoes, carrots, parsnips, and turnups and onions.

-- Paul (treewizard@buffalo.com), December 10, 2001.

Whatever you do, cook it thoroughly. While trichinosis has largely disappeared from domestic pigs, it is still resident in the wild bear population.

-- Ken S. in WC TN (scharabo@aol.com), December 10, 2001.

Having grown up in the great white north and eaten bear meat fairly frequently, here's how I recommend cooking it. Prepare it as you would pork, using any moist-heat recipe. Bear and sauerkraut, barbecued bear, and bear "pigs in blankets" are all excellent choices. Bear does well in a crockpot also. You can use any beef or venison recipe. Marinating a roast for 24 hours in a mix of 4 cups red wine, 1 medium onion, 2 bay leaves 1/2 teaspoon rosemary and 4-6 black peppercorns crushed will give you a tasty roast. Be sure to turn the roast every 6 hours. Remove the roast from the marinade, brown meat on all sides in oil in a dutch oven, cover and bake for 1 hour per pound of meat at a low temp 250, basting several times with the marinade during roasting. Or have it ground and make burgers.

-- Rose Marie Wild (wintersongfarm@yahoo.com), December 10, 2001.

I seem to recall that it is a bit greasy. Perhaps this is why many do not like the taste. If you take care to consider that, you can still make it yummy. Perhaps stewing it gives the heavy taste a chance to spread and not be so noticeable. I think my dad made burger out of it and mixed in another meat. Not real sure on that. It is good if you can lighten the heavy taste.

-- notnow (notnow@blabla.com), December 10, 2001.

CHUCK....I`VE NEVER EATED OR COOKED BEAR MEAT.BUT I`VE BEEN TOLD TO BE SURE TO CUT ALL THE FAT OFF.APPARENTLY,WHEN YOU FRY IT BEAR MEAT STINKS.THE REFERENCE TO ITS SMELL ...WAS LIKE THE SMELL OF PISS IN A HOT PAN.HOW ANYONE WOULD KNOW WHAT PISS SMELLS LIKE IN A HOT PAN I`LL NEVER KNOW..LOL! OR HAVE YOU ALREADY TRIED TO COOK IT?HOW WOULD YOU DESCRIBE THE SMELL?

CORDWOODGUY

-- CORDWOODGUY (cordwoodguy@n2teaching.com), December 10, 2001.

Friend years ago traded us a bear roast for a beef roast (they were dairy farmers but hunted all over the country and used that meat). Anyway, I cooked the roast like I would cook a beef roast, did marinate it a bit(a little soy sauce, little sherry and garlic, can't seem to do anything without garlic,and it was delicious! No fat and it had a sweet taste to it. Maybe it was a young one but all I know is the whole family enjoyed it.

-- Cordy (ckaylegian@aol.com), December 10, 2001.

My ex killed a bear when we lived in Minnesota years ago...and we ate the whole thing as roasts and stew. Tasted alot like beef to me, actually. Not at all gamey or anything. But......it was a young one. I did the butchering and I am good at removing all the fat. I loved doing crock pot stew with it, and pot roasts. I never fried any that I remember. I served it to alot of folks and no one ever knew it wasn't beef. Let us know how yours turns out!!

-- Jenny (auntjenny6@aol.com), December 10, 2001.

Most of the bear meat I've eaten was from a young spring bear, so it wasn't very fat. It was good meat, I cooked it just like any other and nobody ever commented that there was anything funny about it.

The best pie crusts I ever made were made with bear lard, that my grandmother gave me, from a bear that Grandad had killed. The lard tasted fine. I suspect if someone had bear fat that didn't taste good, it was probably because of something the bear had been eating.

As has already been covered, do cook bear meat thoroughly as trichinosis is a rather nasty disease.

-- Kathleen Sanderson (stonycft@worldpath.net), December 10, 2001.

check with the folks at hunt chat particularly Bonnie the moderator of the bears & boars forum

-- Pops (pops762@hotmail.com), December 12, 2001.

I have never eaten bear and probably never will. I have no quarrel with hunters who eat what they kill because they have hungry mouths to feed, but bears are getting more and more endangered. Surely, if you must kill something to fill your belly, there are more than enough common (even seriously overpopulated) species that would serve as well. In fact the number one reason that some species are becoming seriously overpopulated is that we, humans exterminated most of this country's large predators in the past. If we expect the land to yield it's bounty to us (and I assume most of you are "Countrysiders" for variations of that) then we have to learn to respect nature and strive to find a place within it that neither takes too much, nor gives too little. What will you feel when you hear that the last bear was just shot so that someone could make stew?

-- Deborah Stephenson (Wonkaandgypsy@hotmail.com), December 14, 2001.