Expert: Keith Patton - 1/8/2006

Question
Would you provide some recipes for the proper preparation of feral hog meat?  Do you have additional tips on field dressing to minimize wild taste?

Do you, also, have information for venison?

Answer
Really, any recipe for pork will work unless the meat is so rank that it is inedible.

One favorite is take the hams or shoulder, sear it over a grill flame, then set it on double thickness of foil, cover it with chopped onions and any other seasonings you are partial to.  Then cover it slathering it on with your hands, you favorite BBQ sauce.  Seal up with a butcher's fold, make an envelope around the meat.  Then return to the fire or oven and cook till the internal temp is 180-190.

For more recipes check out  www.epicurious.com

To minimize wild taste try to kill the animal when he is at rest or does not know you are there.  Dark cutting meat results in a rank off flavor.  This is recognized by the meat industry, identified in the late 1800's as a phenomena when animals are agitated or frightened prior to death.  Metabolic processes due to fear result in depleted lactic acid in the muscles(meat) this raises pH or lowers the acidity of the meat which allows bacteria to thrive.  This results in a dark, sticky, gummy meat.  This is common in game meat from animals killed on the run, or coursed or chased with dogs.  Every animal I have killed, pole axed, have been great.  All this is why my grand father used to give us hell when we butched hogs, if we agitated them.  He couldn't tell us why it mattered but he knew that the meat would be of lower quality, and the hams would have a higher likelihood of spoiling during curing.  Try killing your hogs over a feeder and if they get agitated or are running, pass and come back another day.

Everything I said applies to venison as well. If you have a long drive, take along some ice, or use snow, to pack the body cavity after you dress it out.  If you shoot it through the lungs or heart, just below and behind the front shoulder, you probably don't need to cut it's throat to bleed it.  I never have, hell you just bored a big hole through the beast don't people think they will bleed out from that?  I find all the blood behind the diaphram up in the chest.  Clean it out, I carry a rag to wipe out the interior cavity and if near a stream, rince it out prior to dragging it out.  I keep zip locs with me to save the heart, and liver.  Keep it cool, and above all do not take it to a processor.  They have ruined one deer for me, they won't do another.  Besides you don't know who's meat you actually get, now do you?  You get meat by the pound, you bring in a 130 lb deer you get 130lbs of venison.  I hang mine in the garage, cut a 20 in piece of 2x4 put some big screw in hooks from the hardware store in the ends and an eye in the middle.  Hook him behind the knees, between the bones and tendons, then use your car or a come along to hoist him up on a tree branch or rafter in the garage or yard.  Get a couple of 5 gal buckets, and gallon ziplocs, a cooler and a bunch of sharp knives and a sharpening steel.  Don't forget you camera.  Some buddies and a 12 pack wouldn't hurt.   YOu can skin the deer prior to hanging it by cutting the hide around the neck, pull a flap down and put a baseball under it.  Tie a strong rope around the hide and ball.  Now you have a good hold on him.  Tie his antlers to something overhead. Hitch the rope to the ball to your car and have someone take up the tension.  You with knife in hand can now cut the hide loose as the driver pulls slowly forward keeping tension on the hide.  We did this with a hay hoist on a tractor, a front loader would work too.  Anything hydraulic.  You can peel the hide down like a a gym sock. There are a number of ways to arrange the deer to do this and run the line.  You can tie his antlers to an overhead beam, then pull the hide down by running the line down unde something sturdy before running it to the car or truck.  You get the idea.

Then to cut him up, just follow the lay of the muscles.  Start with the rump or rear thigh, you follow the muscles and you end up with some large boneless roasts that can be cut into sirloin steaks.  The back strap, if you are careful, can be removed and you have two 1-2 ft long tenderloin. You can cut the ribs with a say and have venison spare ribs or bone out the meat between for jerky.  Trim the meat and throw the scraps or other small cuts into the buckets be be ground up for venison burger.  Do not add beef fat, they use that old hard dry suet that has been in their freezer all year waiting for the unsuspecting deer hunters.  It will ruin your meat.  Other scraps can be used for stew and jerky.  Bag them in your ziplocs and label them accordingly, press out all the air then freeze.


Keith