"It tastes gamey"

[MNGrouser]

I prefer all my own processing and have never had any issues with my white-tail, mule deer, bear or antelope. I did struggle for a while to find a way to make Canada goose that I enjoyed. Finally found a pastrami recipe that is a lot of work but out of this world!

I have a family member who is a hound hunter. I have no issues with hound hunting and have enjoyed the hunts I participated in. But it always makes me laugh and shake my head. His crew complains that they don't really like the bear meat just the hunt. Really? You jump a bear and run it for hours with dogs through a swamp. Kill it miles back into a swamp after it is all adrenalined up. drag it out through the swamp the leave it (hide on) on the tailgate of your truck while you drive dusty roads in September heat on your way to the bar. Finally getting around to hanging it and pealing the hide off that night or the next morning. That isn't the best tasting meat of your life? I'm shocked! Every bear I've killed in MN has been hanging in a walk-in cooler within a few hours of pulling the trigger. Every morsel has been delicious.

 

[mt terry d]

I cringe when I see videos of an elk or deer that is shot and the shot looks good that because they don't see it fall or follow is a short ways say "we'll leave it till morning"
Then, many times, they discover it died before they got back to the truck.

 

[WoodlandCritter]

"Gamey" is a worthless catchall term that needs to die. You're telling me that squirrel, duck, and moose all have the same flavor? Yeah right. If something is rancid due to poor handling, then its rancid. You would get the same exact flavor from beef or chicken if you left in 90 degree weather for 8 hours.

People are used to extremely consistent and homogenous flavors from farm raised meat. There's going to be variability in wild game and that's difficult for people to deal with, as well as just unusual flavors. Deer doesn't taste like beef. Neither does pork, that doesn't make it "gamey". Its just unfamiliar for most people.

Sometimes pork has an especially "porky" flavor that can be unpleasant. Well sometimes deer can be especially "deer-y". But it's definitely not the same taste as a pine squirrel that taste especially "piney". To lump them all together under one blanket term is asinine.

 

[Rich M]

Gamey is a polite term that says i don’t like this.

I shot a nice muley buck that was on ice in about an hour. Strongest deer meat i ever ate. Funny that the hindquarter steaks were very good but the rest, ground, was awful.

 

[KenLee]

I think gamey is earthy. My wife has tried to get me to like lamb, both times she made it it tasted like the stomach/grass contents of deer and elk etc. smells. There have been a couple times when I’ve gotten stomach contents on tenderloins before doing gutless method that similar to you, not sure if it was the smell or taste but it ruined it for me. Oddly, wife didn’t notice that as much and thinks lamb tastes fine.

I’ve talked to a butcher about the lamb and he said if you don’t finish the lamb on grain that’s just what they taste like.

Grass fed lamb has no worthwhile taste, imo. Kinda like coors light

 

[willfrye027]

We eat a lot of game animals..probably an elk and 4-5 deer and a couple wild pigs a year on average. Game meat is in almost every meal we eat.

Freezer burn=gamey, probably the biggest issue. Mitigated by proper meat packaging, and if needed a little bit of trimming before cooking.

Too fresh/not aged can be gamey. Aging for a week minimum seems to tone down the intense flavors which can be gamey.

Had a few animals over the years recovered the next morning, and they were all gamey

Had a few rutty bucks taste very strong despite aging and proper meat care.

One area that I kill a deer every year in 90+ degree temps, during the rut and involves a 4-5 hour pack out. Probably the worst “meat care” conditions but the deer have always tasted excellent, even the old stinky bucks.



I’ve basically decided that leaving an animal overnight is bad, aging is good, and freezer burn needs to be trimmed off. Beyond that some animals just have a strong flavor which can be masked by strong flavors when cooking.

 

[wapitibob]

Muley Buck when I was a kid, cut up by the local butcher; stunk so bad when cooked we had to open the doors. That Deer got tossed in the garbage.
Antelope Buck I shot, took to the local processor to hang, he asked why I didn't want him to cut it, told him the previous story and he convinced me to let him do half. 1st steak tasted like ass and sage combined. Threw it all in the garbage and haven't let a butcher, butcher a game animal of mine since.
I separate every muscle, fillet any casing from dry ageing, and have never had an issue. Pronghorn has the least "flavor" of any animal I hunt, almost none. Elk has a little bit, and Deer about the same; both less than Beef.

 

[mt terry d]

I’ve NEVER had an animal taste gamey,

Then how would you know what gamey tastes like?

 

[fatlander]

Until this fall, I would have agreed with the sentiment that I’ve never had “gamey” meat.

The group of guys I hunt with killed 3 bulls the first week of archery season in Montana. About half of the meat, both ground and steak/roasts, smells and tastes exactly like an elk smells. It’s so off putting you cannot cook it in the house.

Between the two of us that did the cutting on those bulls in the field, I’m certain we’ve processed in the neighborhood of 500 animals, so it’s not like we don’t know what we’re doing to not cross contaminate meat.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[KyleR1985]

The first elk I killed died in a burn with fresh ash/dust/dirt/sand everywhere. That stuff is still staining my camping gear and clothes years later. And it was a learning curve moving a big animal around in 85* sunshine trying to work quickly.

We packed it out and sent to a processor so we could keep hunting. That night we cooked some backstrap and it tasted like elk smelled. I left another chunk of backstrap and the heart in a bowl of ice water in fridge overnight. We cooked the next day and it tasted great after soaking and rinsing again.

My assumption is that it’s just dirty knife and dust and elk funk. Went through every ounce of that elk meat from processor and it all tasted great.


Another 100+ big game animal data set - that singe meal is the only one that’s ever tasted weird.

 

[doc holiday13]

So, what exactly is "gamey"? (Well, it's "game" duh.)
Is the phrase used to mean "not tasting like beef"?

Yes

Truth be told, most people wouldn't like grass fed beef because they've never had it. Every animal taste different. Sheep, goat, cow, chicken, deer, et... Some of it comes down to ignorance on how to pair spices with different animals

I've had 1 deer taste "funny" . 1 off tasting animal out of 100 deer wouldn't be bad. But I can't pinpoint why. The meat flavor was definitely off and it was a buck that was deep in the rut. Thats all i can attribute to it.

 

[Ucsdryder]

Then how would you know what gamey tastes like?

I said I’ve never had a gamey animal. I didn’t say I’ve never tasted a gamey animal.

 

[LCguy]

I tihnk to the general non-hunting public, gamey = stronger than beef. For example, lamb is "gamier" than any elk I've ever eaten (elk really just tastes like better grass-fed beef), and around as gamey as deer. I think a lot of it also has to do with improper field care, introducing some undesirable flavors to the meat that then get lumped in as "gamey" when in reality the animal was just not properly cared for in the field.

 

[Jdeck09]

The only one that I had that was gamey and not pleasant was killed by a sedan . I process everything so I can control the outcome.

 

[WoodlandCritter]

The only one that I had that was gamey and not pleasant was killed by a sedan . I process everything so I can control the outcome.

Interesting, the sedan killed spike I had was great. What make? Mine was a Pontiac, maybe that's the difference. It also self gutted, so it doesn't get much faster than that.

 

[mountaineer]

The antelope and mule deer I've killed in south dakota that eat out of crop fields do taste different than those that eat sage in other states. Not necessarily better or worse, just different. Some people don't pay attention to the lymph nodes and spread it all over the rest of the meat when they cut through it.

 

[Jdeck09]

Interesting, the sedan killed spike I had was great. What make? Mine was a Pontiac, maybe that's the difference. It also self gutted, so it doesn't get much faster than that.

I don't even remember. Wasnt even my car, I was the just the hillbilly that saw it happen and needed venison

 

[Taudisio]

I have had a few that I would say taste like iron. I cut up all my own meat, but I will take a few zip locks to the butcher for jerky and sausage. I can recall about 5 animals being so strong that even taco seasoning has a hard time masking the flavor. Backstraps included. 3 of them came from the same mountain. I have chalked it up to what they were eating. I won’t hunt there anymore even though the game numbers are high. Shot some two ridges over and that taste isn’t present.

 

[180ls1]

I personally think some people just taste things differently.

Perhaps the most overlooked part of the equation.

 

[WoodlandCritter]

I don't even remember. Wasnt even my car, I was the just the hillbilly that saw it happen and needed venison

Wasn't my car either. I was on the way to an elk hunt and only got about 2 minutes from my house. I figured a bird in the hand was worth 2 in the bush.