The worst game animal I ever ate was the first one I killed, a rabbit I shot with my bow when I was 7 years old by the oil pipeline running through the backside of Eielson AFB in Alaska. My dad was so proud of me and he made a rabbit stew out of it the next night and it was just awful. The taste wasn't so bad, but the smell was unbearable. My mom and sister refused to eat it, so my dad and I ate as much as we could. We did not save any leftovers.....I knew we should have grilled it.
When we were stationed there, my dad tagged out on one moose and two caribou. The moose smelled like the muskeg that it was shot in. We let it hang and age in our basement for a week and the meat still had an off smell to it after that, but the meat tasted pretty good. My neighbor totaled their Suburban hitting a nice sized bull. We went out and helped them salvage and the warden let us keep some meat. Evidently, a moose that wasn't killed in a muskeg does smell nowhere near as bad and is pretty tasty. The two caribou did not have a off smell, but I just didn't care for it. I don't remember it tasting bad, but I also don't remember it being one of my favorites. As a kid though, you stop caring for any meat when that is all you eat day in and day out. I felt the same way about salmon. We had two deep freezers in our basement, one full of game meat, the other was filled to the brim with salmon. I got to the point where I just hated salmon. I like it now, but I refuse to pay for some chef's idea of bastardized farmed salmon and just prefer to get it fresh if I can find it here in MO, or just eating it raw at the local sushi joints. I sure do miss fishing for them during our annual summer vacations off the banks of the Gulkana, Chitna, and Valdez. Dang I miss living in Alaska.
The absolute worst food I have ever had was a Chinese delicacy made out of deep fried sea slug that I had at a 5-star restaurant in Inchon, South Korea when my dad was stationed there when I was in college. It tasted exactly like what I would imagine deep fried crispy green snot would taste like. It took everything I had to keep that down. This is coming from a guy who thinks raw live octopus (sliced or whole) and sea cucumbers (basically a sea slug that you can slice up fresh and alive like a cucumber) with some GoChuJang (spicy korean paste) is next to heavenly on a hot day fishing on the beach.
