If you’ve never eaten black bear, let me tell you, it’s delicious!
Two carnivores hunting in the woods. There’s something to be said about harvesting an animal that is perfectly capable of harvesting you. We encountered this beautiful beast while hunting Spring turkeys. With Autumn comes a different season.
Orange Glazed Bear
bear meat cut into thin strips
soy sauce
fresh ginger
fresh garlic
ground mustard
flour of your choice for dredging (wheat, cornstarch, rice, etc.)
avocado oil
coconut oil
orange zest
barbecue sauce (homemade or one you like)
sesame seed
green onion
Marinade thin bear strips in a splash of soy sauce, fresh ginger, fresh garlic, with a pinch of ground mustard. Marinade over night or vacuum marinade for 30 minutes. The longer the better.
Place enough flour to coat the meat in a repurposed produce bag. Drain and save marinade juice from meat. Place meat in bag of flour, toss to coat.
Heat a splash almond oil with a dollop of coconut…
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THE FORESTER ARTIST 
I’ve never had bear before. Hubby has had raccoon and he said it was too greasy and gamey (we have had venison and elk, etc, before, so it wasn’t like we’re strangers to gaminess) and had wondered if due to the raccoon being an omnivore…so we’ve never looked for omnivore meat. I imagine with that sauce you made, a tree would be tasty! 😀
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Bear fat is viscous and breaks down quickly. We get our bears out of the skin and cool the carcass as fast as we can after harvest. This keeps the meat from tasting off or gamey. I also like bear stir fried with broccoli in olive oil, no seasonings just the meat and veggie. It depends on what they are eating. I’ve heard if the diet is heavy to fish, then the taste isn’t as pleasing.
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That’s interesting about the meat not being as good if the diet is heavy on fish! I wouldn’t have guessed that.
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I don’t know about raccoon, but often gaminess in game meat is a result of how it was processed. Our preference is to get an animal out of the hide and chill it down as soon as possible. We like to get them butchered within a few days of harvest and keep the meat chilled in the mean time. Then we’ll de-bone them and remove the fat. This minimizes any gaminess. This is particularly important when processing bear. However, if you kill an animal in rut or accidently cut the scent glands, it will tend to be gamie.
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I suppose that’s why my FIL loved raccoon (because he grew up hunting/eating them in western MD) and hubby didn’t (because by the time he came along, my FIL wasn’t hunting raccoon anymore and bought it from a farmers market). :}
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I raised meat rabbits as a kid, later as an adult I purchased rabbit in a market. Not the same. Just not the same. Come to think of it, since we’ve been raising our own chicken, store chicken doesn’t taste as good either. Hmmmm… I see a pattern here. 😉
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True! 😀 It’s so hard to eat even the chickens we get at the farmers market…our own chickens are much more flavorful.
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I tried to post this comment to Mary’s blog, but it makes me go through two extra steps of signing in (when I’m already signed into WordPress), so I gave up because I have to go to a different part of the house to get where I’ve written down my WP password. I don’t know why some WP blogs make you do that…
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wow, isn’t that odd. I’ll have to check my settings.
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Thanks!
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So odd, I can’t figure out why it did this to you. 😦 If you are already signed in, it should be good to go. It should only ask for email for unregistered users. curious.
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It is very odd! There is another blog that consistently does that to me. I don’t know if it has something to do with the blogs having their own domain names or not.
Today, though, your blog allowed me to comment directly from Reader…so, hooray! Things might be fixed. 🙂
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hmmm. Tim’s has it’s own domain too. perhaps the WP squirrels noticed a glitch and fixed it. 😉
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LOL! I sure hope so!
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I’ve had that happen from my work computer. I don’t know why and it does it only occasionally. That would be a question for the WP helpers.
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I should look into it. I’ve only had it happen at Mary’s and 2 other WP blogs I follow. And then there are blogs that I can’t pull up via the Reader mode (and I have to load the entire site on the separate tab…which is annoying because my internet is really bad – slow and there are limits on our download amounts).
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Never tried it. If I do, I’d like mine ready to eat.
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You definitely don’t want it ready to eat you!
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So true, Tim and Mary. You two can handle about anything! No fear! Or is there some little something that does make you shake in your boots?
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Not telling.
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Poor, poor bear.
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Truth be told, come bear season he’ll be very hard to find. It’s not like shopping. We work really hard to put organic protein in the freezer. By the size of this bear, I think he’s been giving plenty of hunter’s the slip over the years. He was magnificent and I enjoyed shooting him with the camera. Not too pleased that he frightened the turkeys away the morning he showed up in the lens, but he’s gotta eat too. 😉 We all gotta eat.
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I know.
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I understand. I love seeing these beautiful beasts, but I’m also part of this environment and food chain. We all eat and hunting is hard. The wild animals get away far more often then not. A beef cow never has the chance to escape. Besides, I believe that people who eat meat should kill, process and eat a meal from an animal at least once in their life. It’s a difficult thing to do, but there will be a much great connection and appreciation of where that food come from. Harvesting our food creates a healthy relation with it. We recall the stories and adventures of the animals when we sit down and eat a wild game meal. We eat very little store bought meat.
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I dunno. I try to eat as little mean as possible because I know the store bought stuff is not “produced” humanely. I grew up on an estate in Jamaica. Back then, a chicken was killed for Sunday dinner. A goat was killed for special occasions. I would cry for days and days. Ditto when it was bird hunting season. But I do understand the need to eat, the food chain, etc. Hunting for sport, I totally am against.
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You are a tender heart Kay. You experienced raising and slaughtering animals for food first hand. It changes how you view your food doesn’t it. It is a valuable life experience, albeit difficult.
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I’ve often thought that if people had to at least once in their life harvest their protein, clean and prepare it, then they might have a healthier respect for the origins of their meat. It’s harsh and meat in the supermarket removes people from the reality of consuming animal protein. It’s a double edge to take the life of a beautiful creature that I may have healthy protein in the freezer. For me, personally, I prefer that harvest to be hands on through hunting rather than the anonymity of shopping.
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Oh my, now that’s a big bear! You guys amaze me!
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He was a big brute. We were turkey hunting and he scared the turkeys away, but that’s okay, because he was so fun to watch. We had been seeing his poop all around the meadow. It was huge, look like dinosaur poop. So when we finally saw him cruise by in was pretty cool.
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