Bambi Béarnaise

Yes, I have finally established my pioneer wife cred, bitten the bullet and cooked up some of the deer meat that’s been sitting in our freezer for the past year.

Here’s the story: the ever lovin’ isn’t much of a hunter (though he does like to talk about it…) but there are a few guys who have permission to hunt on our property. They brought us a few frozen hunks of various descriptions last year at the end of the season. I smiled, promptly stuck it in the freezer and have been wishing ever since that it would just go away. I’ve been unwilling to throw it out but afraid (on several levels) to cook/eat/serve it to my kids. But Christian has been begging me to cook it, and I came to the conclusion that we had better use it up before 2010 in case the hunters show up with another offering later this winter. So we did a roast in the crockpot a few weeks ago, cooked up a large pot of chili during the blizzard, and roasted a nut crusted tenderloin the other day with pretty good results.

The truth is, I have mixed feelings about meat in general. This despite the fact that some of my favorite memories involve the consumption of large quantities of animal flesh. Most of these took place in France, I should note. Like three consecutive days of foie gras and duck breasts in Armagnac. And those fabulous saucissons I had with a winemaker and his wife outside of Perpignan, followed by a fascinating discussion of the importance of butchers in provincial life (apparently, a subpar boucher can be a death sentence to a French village). The French and their meat…I always think of the scene in Rohmer’s Le Rayon Vert (one of my all time faves) where flaky but lovable heroine tries to explain her vegetarianism to a bunch of rowdy French meat eaters.

Anyway, I manage to suppress my concerns about industrially raised meat every time I go to Costco. I try to get hormone free/organic meats when I can, but find that is sometimes cost prohibitive. I generally find raw meat disgusting (even the grass fed, locally raised stuff), and I tend to get a little paranoid about foodborne pathogens. Christian has friends who are raw vegans, and we’ve discussed going that route at some point. But that would be way down the road. I know there are some who would disagree, but I really do think little kids need to eat meat.

So, for now at least, we’re confirmed omnivores. But the venison thing still had me a little freaked out. I’ve eaten deer meat on a handful of occasions but have never prepared it myself and was preoccupied with concerns about diseases from eating wild animals, gaminess (although, now that I think about it, I’m really not exactly sure what that means…) or at the very least freezer burn. Then there are the redneck associations I couldn’t shake.

Anyway, with some encouragement from my globetrotting, PhD friend/neighbor who regularly dines on venison killed and cooked up by her mountain man, I finally decided to take the plunge. I wasn’t swooning or anything, but it has all been fairly tasty and certainly edible. Besides, isn’t this exactly the kind of local, free-range meat we’re supposed to be eating? And of course, everything tastes better when it’s free.