venison

So...I know it has been awhile since I have written a blog. I have not forgotten about it...I have been thinking about it a lot, actually, just haven't gotten to it. So here it is...

Over the holidays, my boyfriend and I did some cooking. We make a good team when cooking together because he usually likes to cook meat and I usually like to cook a pasta or rice and vegetable. We were in my parents' house and looking in the freezer for options for dinner. We saw some venison, something we didn't have much experience with, but we decided to try it. It was wonderful! It wasn't gamey, it was moist and flavorful...it was a great steak. You know what helped make it great (besides my boyfriend's 'let's try this' cooking skills)? We knew exactly where it came from...my parents' backyard. My dad shot the deer we were now eating in November on their property behind their house. We watched this deer live - she ate my mom's flowers, she ran in front of their car on the road, she grazed on their pasture with her fellow deer. My dad shot her, hung her, butchered her and froze the meat. That is what we had for dinner.

I know some people think - how can you eat that cute deer you saw in your backyard? It's cruel. What is cruel is how factory farm animals are raised. This deer had a good life - ate a natural diet, roamed free, mated, had offspring and had a quick, clean kill. Deer meat is lean, free of antibiotics and added hormones. The same cannot be said for factory farm animals. Hunting, in general, is not cruel, assuming kills are quick and clean. Hunting seasons have a great purpose...to prevent overpopulation and help wild animals get through a low food period. Deer hunting season is in late November, before the harsh upstate NY winters hit. Hunting a few deer (I don't know the exact number of licenses the state allows) help the remaining deer get through the winter. The less deer there are, the more who can find enough food. Starvation is no easy way to die.

Not only is my dad a great butcher (those steaks were beautiful! try finding a piece of meat that looks like that in the grocery store), but he is not wasteful. It takes several days to butcher the whole deer and a sharp knife and a cutting board is all you need (and a tolerance for the cold). He packages up all the meat he can find. My uncle takes the hide. And it is tradition in my mom's family to have deer heart as 'picky' food Thanksgiving day.

I'll take eating the cute, wild animal in my backyard any day over a inhumanely treated, unnatural animal from a factory farm.