Bear meat

“ By proper cooking, however, much of this flavor, if it happens to be a disagreeable one, can be driven off.
The general composition of the flesh of various kinds of game does not differ greatly from that of similar domestic animals or birds. For instance, the flesh of bear is similar in its composition to that of fat beef, as bear is one of the wild animals that is very fat. Venison, or the meat obtained from deer, contains much less fat, and its composition resembles closely that of very lean beef. Rabbits and most of the wild birds are quite lean ”

“ Oh, oh,” he shouted, jumping to his feet, “there’s the bear meat!”
“I don’t know whether the grizzly will make good eating?” Clay said, “but we can soon find out If you’ll get Captain Joe and Teddy out of the way, I’ll fry a few slices.”
“I bar that!” Alex exclaimed. “I don’t like fried bear meat. Say, what’s the matter of parboiling the meat and making a bear stew? That will be all right. We’ve got potatoes, onions, turnips, rice, and lots of things to put into it.”
“I wish we had a cabbage!” Case observed. “There never was a good stew that wasn’t part cabbage. Don’t they can cabbage?” ”

“ On the route, our hunters killed a young grizzly bear, which, with a few grouse, made us an excellent dinner. [232] Fresh meat is now very grateful to our palates, as we have been living for weeks past on nothing but poor, dried buffalo, the better, and {112} far the larger part, having been deposited in the fort for the subsistence of the men who remain. We have no flour, nor vegetables of any kind, and our meat may be aptly compared to dry chips, breaking short off in our fingers; and when boiled to soften it a little, and render it fit for mastication, not a star appears in the pot. ”

“ The bear was large and fat, they could tell by the “feel” of him; and if they drew upon the carcass for moderate rations, it would hold out for many days; but then how was the meat to be preserved? Lying as it was—still unskinned—it must soon become unfit for food, though not so soon as in the open air; for meat will keep much longer in a cave,—that is, if it be a very deep one, than it will when exposed to the full light of the sun. ”

“ Domestic animals are slower, more timid, more clumsy, and with far duller sense. It is on these that the bear by preference preys when he needs fresh meat. I have never, myself, known one to kill horses; but I have been informed that the feat is sometimes performed, usually in spring; and the ranchman who told me insisted that when a bear made his rush he went with such astonishing speed that the horse was usually overtaken before it got well under way.
THE GRIZZLY AND A VICTIM
33 The favorite food of a bear, however, if he really wants fresh meat, is a hog or sheep—by preference the former. ”

“ Nearly all the meat food consumed in the United States is derived from cattle, sheep, and swine. Goat flesh is eaten only to a limited extent and horse meat scarcely at all, and the only other meats of importance are those of [12] wild animals. The principal wild animals used for food are the deer, bear, rabbit, and squirrel. Many other wild animals, however, are eaten and in some cases highly prized. In this manual only the principal meat foods both of domesticated and wild animals will be mentioned. ”

“ The flesh of the deer forms an agreeable change from our salt provisions. Venison is often quite plenty. From the hare and partridge our cook serves a delicious pot-pie. The flesh of the moose and bear are very good. Were it not for the unprepossessing appearance of the latter, his flesh would be esteemed before most wild meat. The flesh of a young black bear a year old, if fat, is not easily distinguished, when cooked, from a good pork spare rib. ”

“ The flesh-meats they usually eat are the buffalo, the deer, the bear, and the dog: they eat of all kind of water-fowl and fish; but they have no other way of dressing their meat but by roasting or boiling. The following is their manner of roasting their meat when they are in the fields hunting: they plant a stake in the ground sloping towards the fire, and on the point of this stake they spit their meat, which they turn from time to time. To preserve what they do not use, they cut it into thin pieces, which they dry, or rather half-roast, upon a grate made of canes placed cross-ways. ”

“ The lean of good fresh beef is of a bright red color, a fine close grain, and feels tender to the touch on pinching it between your thumb and finger. The fat is firm and very nearly white. The suet about the kidney, firm and quite white. If, on the contrary, the lean is coarse, tough, and of a dull color, and the fat scanty, yellow, and moist, do not buy that meat for any purpose. The same rules will apply to mutton. If the weather is so cold that the meat is frozen, thaw it by lying it all night or early in the morning in a tub of cold water. ”

“ In North America, bears’ flesh was formerly considered equal to pork, the meat having a flavour between beef and pork; and the young cubs were accounted the finest eating in the world. Dr. Brooke, in his Natural History, adds—‘Most of the planters prefer bears’ flesh to beef, veal, pork, and mutton. The fat is as white as snow, and extremely sweet and wholesome, for if a man drinks a quart of it at a time, when melted, it will never rise on his stomach! ”

“ Now, when the bill of fare offers such tempting viands as buffalo beef, venison, mountain mutton, turkey, grouse, wildfowl, hares, rabbits, beaver and their tails, &c., &c., the station assigned to "dog" as No. 2 in the list can be well appreciated—No. 1, in delicacy of flavour, richness of meat, and other good qualities, being the flesh of panthers, which surpasses every other, and all put together.
"Painter meat can't 'shine' with this," says a hunter, to express the delicious flavour of an extraordinary cut of "tender loin," or delicate fleece. ”

“ If young and freshly killed, the lean of ox-beef will be smoothly grained, and of a fine, healthy, carnation-red, the fat rather white than yellow, and the suet white and firm. Heifer-beef is more 185closely grained, and rather less bright of colour, the bones are considerably smaller, and the fat of a purer white.
Of bull-beef we only speak to warn our readers that it is of all meat the coarsest and the most rank in flavour. It may be known by its dark hue, its close tough fibre, and the scanty proportion, bad appearance, and strong odour of its fat. ”

“ But neither beef nor mutton require to be so well done as pork, lamb, and veal.—Pork, in particular, requires to be thoroughly done. It must be basted with salt and water; and the skin or rind of the leg, loin, and spare-rib, must be scored, with a sharp knife, after it has been some time at the fire, to make it eat the better. Geese, pigs, and young pork, require a brisk fire, and should be turned quickly.
Great care should be taken in spitting the meat, that the prime part of the joint be not injured:—to balance it on the spit, cook-holds and loaded skewers are very handy. ”

“ We breed and fatten a large number of pigs on the clearings round the shanty. These we butcher in batches of six or eight, as required, and turn into salt pork, bacon, and ham. We have occasionally sent a cask or two of pork, some flitches or hams, to market; but as a rule we consume our pigs on the farm. Pig-meat is most reliable as a staple. One does not tire of it so utterly as one does of either mutton or beef, if one of these be the invariable daily food.
Beef we rarely see in our shanty. The steers we breed are too valuable to be used by ourselves; they have to go to market. ”

“ Pork—fresh and salted, bacon and ham—is the natural and invariable food of the settler. Beef and mutton are too valuable as marketable steers, dairy cattle, and wool-growers, and are not so conveniently prepared into keeping forms; hence the pigs he breeds on his clearings are looked upon by the bush-farmer as the regular source whence to draw his household provision in the meat way. ”

“ POULTRY are of more importance to us than game, and the flesh, containing less nitrogen, is not so stimulating as beef or mutton. Old fowls are often tough and indigestible, and have often, also, a rank flavor like a close hen-house, produced by the absorption into the flesh of the oil intended by nature to lubricate the feathers.
GAME contains even less fat than poultry, and is considered more strengthening. The flesh of rabbits and hares is more like poultry or game than meat, but is too close in fiber to be as digestible. Pigeons and many other birds come under none of the heads given. ”

“ In selecting Beef, take that which has a coarse, loose grain, which easily yields to the pressure of finger, or knife; which is a purplish red, and has whitish fat. Ox Beef is best. If the lean is purplish and the fat very yellow, it is bad Beef. If it is coarse-grained and hard to break or cut, it is tough. Stall-fed has lighter fat than grass-fed Beef.
If meat is frozen, lay it in cold water to thaw. A piece of ten pounds, or more, will require all night to thaw. Beef and Mutton improve by keeping. Meat is better for not being frozen, except fresh Pork. ”

“ He was an audacious marauder and killed his beef almost within sight of the camp-fire. Often at night a cow or steer could be heard bellowing in terror, and in the morning a freshly killed animal would be found in some hollow not far away, bearing marks of bear’s claws. Whitened bones scattered all over the hills showed that the bear had been the boss butcher of General Beal’s ranch for a long time. His average allowance of beef appeared to be about two steers a week, but he usually ate only half a carcass, leaving the rest to the coyotes and vultures. ”

“ To work we now went on the bears, and no slight affair we found it to skin and cut them up, but by dint of perseverance, we at last succeeded in our object.
Determining to smoke the meat on the spot, we cut magnificent hams, and took off the rest of the meat in slices after the manner of the buccaneers in the West Indies, preserving the paws entire to be cooked as a delicacy, and obtaining from the two bears together a prodigious supply of lard, which my wife gladly undertook to melt and prepare for keeping. ”

“ If the animal’s age is less than 17 to 18 months, the properly prepared cooked meat should be relatively tender. Yearlings just off the cow with perhaps a short period on grass, weighing 400 to 600 pounds, will produce meat low in fat. This meat will be less flavorful than meat from grain-fed animals but should be acceptably tender. Many persons who slaughter on the farm expect the meat from an 800-pound forage-fed steer to taste like U.S. Choice or Prime.
Meat Yield
Well-fed steers from most beef breeds yield a dressed carcass weighing approximately 60 percent of the animal’s live weight. ”

“ The dry bunks and blankets, with the warm fur bags, made beds for a king. The hot tea and hot heavy bread, made with flour and water, were warming, and satisfying, too, with the bit of bacon. They were too tired to worry about the bear, which came back and prowled round the shack when the warm smell of food came out of the pipe that served as a chimney. Bears love bacon, which is why the great traps laid for them--drop traps--are nearly always baited with lumps of bacon or pork. ”

“ For this reason many butchers breed pigs, and let them find their living in their slaughter houses. Beware, therefore, good reader, of butcher pork.
We are told that in the great establishments in France for the rearing of chickens and fowls, that they are fed upon horse flesh, which they eat voraciously. If carnivorous feeding makes our pigs’ flesh poisonous, it is very probable that a like system of feeding will make our delicate chicken meat a curse rather than a blessing to invalids. We may feel pretty sure that the horse flesh is not of the most healthy kind or of the freshest quality. ”

“ Pork, veal, and lamb, should always be well roasted; but many eaters prefer mutton and beef rather underdressed, though some persons have a strong objection to the sight even of any meat that is not thoroughly cooked.
Joints which are thin in proportion to their weight, require less of the fire than thick and solid ones. Ribs of beef, for example, will be sooner ready to serve than an equal weight of the rump, round, or sirloin ”

“ Immediately as soon as He hath killed it, he seasoneth and baketh it as soon as He can, so that the flesh may never be cold. And this maketh that the fat runneth in among the lean, and is like calvered Salmon, and eats much more mellow and tender. But before the Deer be killed, he ought to be hunted and chafed as much as may be. Then seasoned and put in the oven before it be cold. Be sure to pour out all the gravy, that settleth to the bottom, under the flesh after the baking, before you put the Butter to it, that is to lie very thick upon the meat, to keep it all the year. ”

“ Poultry and water-fowl, young pork, old beef, and fat meat in general, should not be eaten; but, on the contrary, meat of a proper age, of a warm and dry, but on no account of a heating and exciting nature. ”

“ In plump young lamb and pork all cuts are tender. With veal, rib and loin are generally more tender than the rest of the carcass. The cheaper cuts of lamb, pork, and veal—that is, shoulder, breast, and shank meat—make good chops, roasts, pot roasts, and stews.
Learn the cuts of meat so you can name them when you see them. The best teacher is the reliable meat dealer. Arrange to do your marketing at the time of day when he can help you. ”

“ Perhaps there is no one piece of sausage as susceptible of being made so excellent or so tasteless, it being entirely a matter of what it is made from. The better grades are made from freshly killed bull beef, hashed warm. The process consists in boning bull beef and opening the meats along the seams, so to speak, skinning each bundle of muscle to remove the wrapping and cutting out all ligaments. Fresh pork, preferably, shoulder meat is treated in the same manner. ”