"It tastes gamey"

[ReaptheHeat]

Never been a fan of mule deer. It's "gamey" to me. It's just a matter of how gamey or strong that flavor is. Does and early season bucks are fine. It goes from mild to inedible during the rut. Diet plays a big part. I've shot deer from other units/states that were very mild. Mid country sage deer have been the worst for me. No one can convince me that handling is 100% the factor in taste when there are so many other variables at play.

It's always white tail and mulies. Rarely do you hear complaints of rutting archery bulls in the heat of September that took 4 days to pull out of the backcountry tasting bad.

 

[Matt5266]

Had a friend give me some mule deer burger that he had shot in the Owyhee’s and it stunk my kitchen up when I cooked it. Otherwise everything has been just fine.

Did have one cow I shot and it went through rigor mortis but then had half freeze before I cut it up. When I thawed it and processed it it was fine but the cuts were impossibly tough to chew. Ended up grinding it all into burger.

I've heard horror story's of the owyhee animals. I've killed and eaten more than a few and only 1 my dad killed was inedible. I dont know the cause because I was only 12 at the time but I still remember the smell and taste.

 

[9487329]

I always thought I didn't like fish my whole life.
Now I catch my own trout, knife through the brain, guts and blood out, on to ice, all in 2 min from start to finish. Every fish is delicious. Turns out I just don't like how most poorly handled, stressed out fish taste.

 

[Tilzbow]

I’ve had a horrendously rank pronghorn that I know for a fact was well taken care of, cooled down, etc.

 

[longrangelead]

Out of the over probably 150 game animals I've eaten, consisting of whitetails,
mulies, antelope, elk ( cows & bulls ), bear, moose (Montana and AK) caribou,
mountain lion, and mountain goat (Montana and AK) I've had only two animals
that didn't taste good. All shot in various temperatures from @ +90 to -15 and
various levels of excitement from bedded/sleeping to full rut running for their lives.
One was a mulie buck from SD and a mulie doe about 5 miles from my house
Nothing I can point to that would contribute to the bad taste.
Some more tender or tough than others (the mountain goats were pretty tough)
and some with more or less flavor ( antelope seems quite bland compared to others)
Oh, I had one hind quarter on the first bull in rut I killed, I contaminated it
with the knife I used to skin the belly hair with. It probably didn't affect the
actual taste that much but as smell and taste are closely linked it was nasty.

So, what exactly is "gamey"? (Well, it's "game" duh.)
Is the phrase used to mean "not tasting like beef"?
If it's not used in that way like someone who regularly eats game and likes it,
shouldn't that person say "this meat is bad", which i'd bet most times can be
attributed to how it's been cared for and prepared.

my experience is similar, my wife and I process all our meat with the exception of smoke cured bear hams or jalapeño/cheddar summer sausage.
We prefer wild game, we eat beef so little, a big fatty beef steak upsets my gut for a day.

we usually do the gutless method and get the meat cooled down or on ice asap.

I grew up on game meat and how it's cooked is directly related to how palatable it is.

As an adult, I've also only had two animals that were so inedible, literally the dog wouldn't eat it.
one was a mature blacktail buck, the other a spike whitetail.
The blacktail I believe was my fault. I shot it in the neck and killed it instantly. It was cold and knee deep snow so I loaded it up and took it home. I gutted it and cut it up some 3-4 hours after shooting it.
Once I started cooking the meat, it was excessively bloody thawing out and during/after cooking it. It tasted like gamey blood.

I believe killing it instantly and not bleeding out, the blood coagulated in the meat and severely affected taste.
I was 19 I think so I didn't know any better.

The whitetail spike I believe had something else going on. I shot it in the neck bedded near the house. With the blacktail in mind, within 10 minutes it was gutted and hanging in the shop. After skinning it, I cut some backstrap steaks while the muscles were still twitching. Fried in bacon grease as I started boning quarters, they were so nasty and tough the dog wouldn't eat it. I thought I did something wrong so I cut a couple rump steaks and tried again.
Same, so foul and tough the dog wouldn't touch it. This one I genuinely can't explain as it was a yearling spike and no visible health issues.

I've had several deer and elk with infections that we generously avoided but didn't affect the meat overall.

I've also shot bucks in full rut that were so stinky and covered in piss I though "no way this one isn't gamey" and they were just fine.

I firmly believe how fast the meat is cooled is the most important factor. After that is if the animal was bled(most are from the shot), not contaminated with guts/pee while gutting and how it is cooked.

This is out of 150-200 animals that my wife or i shot, or friends/family shot and i was there for the kill and processing and ate some of the meat.
Deer(mule, whitetail and blacktail), elk, antelope, bear, cougar, 1 Bighorn, 1 mountain goat, 2 moose

my 2 cents...

 

[Beagle1]

Canada goose.

 

[SonnyDay]

The story I always refer back to when a conversation about gamey meat comes up is about a guy I knew that grew up in a remote area of Alaska. He said that until he was about 16 the only red meat he had ever eaten was moose, bear, and caribou. As soon as was possible he moved to Seattle to get a job and started eating beef for the first time. He said he didn't care for it and it had an off putting taste to him.

Several years ago we started eating ground bison in place of ground beef... and I've come to prefer it. Now, when I brown ground beef, I detect a distinct "liver" smell... whereas the bison always smells clean. As does my ground elk.

My daughter, starting at age 7, vastly prefers ground elk to beef.

No pressure, daddy.

 

[JRay]

Killed a bighorn in the first part of September, excellent eating. Killed one mid November, was excited bought all the euro spices etc, Greek style, it was inedible. The flavor of the meat was so rancid I didn’t even try to make it “edible” because it wasn’t.

Had the exact same experience with Bighorn.

 

[Team4LongGun]

Maybe I missed it in your brain damage format but do you process your own animals?

I’ve NEVER had an animal taste gamey, but I control the process from kill to table. I don’t think animals taste gamey, I think people make animals taste gamey.

I didn’t know if it was a question, rhetorical or just sharing….

Quick kill, proper processing and even aging meat is what we do, never a gamey taste. If it’s “gamey” there is a reason and it’s not a good thing.

 

[HighUintas]

I don't know if I've ever had "gamey" venison. I'd say they mostly have a flavor that reminds me of the smell of crushing up sage brush or yarrow.... Something camphorous. Some are stronger than others.

Something gamey/sour I've eatena real long time ago... A squirrel shot in warm weather, not cooled properly, then grilled without any kind of soaking or marinating half day later. That was truly shit and learned my lesson on it.

 

[TedO]

There are a few variables that can make meat taste gamey, but beyond properly cooling the meat, the most important aspect to focus on is getting the blood out. Blood=gamey flavor.

 

[Poser]

Whenever I hear someone use the word "gamey" (does it taste "gamey"?), I ask what they mean when they say that. Most people tend to struggle to articulate a description and resort to "tough." I can cook you a tough cut of beef and you wouldn't describe it as "gamey."
The weird one is when you cook someone some game meat and they say, "wow, its not even gamey!" Is that a complement?

 

[Poser]

There are a few variables that can make meat taste gamey, but beyond properly cooling the meat, the most important aspect to focus on is getting the blood out. Blood=gamey flavor.

I haven't heard this ol' wives tale in a good while. Indulge us further: soak in saltwater?

 

[Blake C]

Maybe I missed it in your brain damage format but do you process your own animals?

I’ve NEVER had an animal taste gamey, but I control the process from kill to table. I don’t think animals taste gamey, I think people make animals taste gamey.

 

[Boarmaster]

I’m not really sure what they are talking about when they say gamey. I did shoot a deer that had been injured prior to hunting season and it had a pretty good wound that was festered. That deer tasted bad clear thru. I attributed it to it having a whole body infection from the wound. It had a spoiled taste to me. I tried several different parts and then tossed the deer. I also shot a wild hog that had some boils and sores under the skin. My guess is infected dog bites. It smelt bad and I tossed it. I have ate hundreds of game animals over 45 years that just tasted like whatever animal it was.

 

[Q_Sertorius]

I personally think some people just taste things differently. Like some people think cilantro tastes like soap. My ex-wife had a very sensitive nose, and she couldn’t stand venison unless it was totally disguised. And even then she could usually tell that the bolognese was made with venison rather than grass fed beef. She also didn’t like lamb or fish at all.

I’ve only had one deer that really tasted bad and it was improperly cared for by a guide.

Judging from the number of people whose favorite venison tenderloin recipe involves marinating it in Italian dressing and then country frying it (like it was the worst cut of beef steak), I think there are a lot of people who just don’t really like meat with any flavor.

 

[TedO]

I haven't heard this ol' wives tale in a good while. Indulge us further: soak in saltwater?

No soaking needed. Just aging/hanging the meat for a week or more (in whatever cold storage method you prefer). Further, when you thaw a package out to cook, drain all the blood out before you start to prepare it for cooking. If you have a clean field-dressing process, promptly cool the meat, and remove the blood, the odds of gamey flavor diminish.

 

[LongWayAround]

I personally think some people just taste things differently. Like some people think cilantro tastes like soap. My ex-wife had a very sensitive nose, and she couldn’t stand venison unless it was totally disguised. And even then she could usually tell that the bolognese was made with venison rather than grass fed beef. She also didn’t like lamb or fish at all.

My lady is sort of similar. She hates the smell of raw game or cooking burger meat. Once it's cooked, she's happy to eat it though.

 

[LongWayAround]

I have always found the "gamey' comment to be something that people who don't know better will say.

My opinion has long been that it's just a function of people being used to eating commodity beef.

Of all of the animals that I have eaten, I can't recall one that was actually bad. My one antelope was kind of a rodeo. It didn't taste bad, but certainly had a weirdness about it. I also killed a young whitetail buck this year that tastes fine but it is weirdly tough.

 

[7RemMag]

In my experience, “Gamey” is a word that people tend to use(perhaps incorrectly)to describe any strong flavor in meat that they don’t like. I think much of this comes from people being somewhat narrow-minded in how they cook/process their game meat. I think of the general idea that antelope is inferior as a great example of this. Everyone in my family enjoys antelope. It’s different. It’s a little stronger than the grass and corn grazed whitetails I grew up eating, but it’s still very good.

The way the animal and meat is handled is the greatest factor. I think it goes without saying too that a deer that was gut shot and laid up in a thicket somewhere for a couple hours before being shot again is headed down the road of poor palatability long before it reaches the pan. I also think that even in that situation, things can be done to create a finished product that is still pretty tasty if a person handles it the right way.

I’ve had beef that tasted worse than the worst cut of game meat I can ever recall eating. Then again, I don’t like bland food by any stretch of the imagination. Some people sure seem to.