Frugal Meat Opportunity
When we lived in Texas, I learned something cool. And with hunting season either here or right around the corner depending on your state, this is exciting!
You know how guys like to go hunt, mainly for the trophy, but can’t use all that meat? That sounds ridiculously wasteful, right? But here’s the cool thing: hunters often take their bounty up to the local butcher, which means the butcher may have a lot of venison on his hands.
To counter this, many butchers keep a list of names and phone numbers for people interested in the excess meat. All you have to do is pay processing fees. Pretty sweet!
I’ve found this isn’t available in every area, but it’s worth looking up local butchers and asking!
I know many people can’t stomach the thought of eating venison. I grew up eating it, so I can’t sympathize, but I can tell you that wild game is bound to be more healthy than feed-lot finished beef that you’d get at most grocers. It’s worth trying, even if it makes you squeamish. And if you’ve had the unfortunate experience of eating gamey meat, well, I can sympathize with that!
Tips for eating venison
One of the best ways to counter that is apple cider vinegar. Vinegar and salt work very well to remove blood from the meat, where most of the gamey taste comes from. We’ve had the best results, though, from vinegar. We think this is because of the enzymes that work on the meat while it’s soaking, but we’re not scientists, so who knows?
Our method is to soak the meat for at least twenty-four hours in a rather imprecise solution of water and vinegar. I’d say somewhere between half a cup and a cup of vinegar per gallon of water. You can’t do this for ground beef, of course. We soak ours before we grind it, and I can honestly say that we’ve never had any gamey-tasting meat using this method. Just good, lean, red meat.
