Soon will be bear hunting season, and it’s not just for trophy hunting. Additionally, it concerns the enormous feast of recipes made with bear meat that would follow. After a successful but exhausting hunt, a bowl of delicious stew made with this exotic meat would be more satisfying than the trophy, wouldn’t you agree?
For the past century, wild game has been consumed by native tribes, settlers, and frontierspeople. In North America, Finland, and Siberia, the meat is regarded as delectable and edible. In this article, we’ll show you how to prepare and consume the numerous bear meat recipes in a safe manner. So read on.
How do you cook bear meat?
There are many unfounded rumors about cooking with bears. Some people believe you can’t cook with it because it’s unsafe for food, while others believe it tastes fishy and is difficult. Here’s the scoop:
Work with bear meat similarly to how you work with poultry is the best way to put it. Given that bears eat other animals and grub, it is possible that they harbor parasites. Therefore, you must ensure that the animal is well-shot, swiftly transferred from the processing area to vacuum-sealed freezer bags, and frozen as soon as practicable.
To ensure food safety, it must be cooked to an internal temperature of 165°F (like chicken and pork). However, it really is just like working with a chicken breast, so there is nothing unusual to be concerned about.
A second point that I want to make is related to properly cooking bear. Because they’ve eaten well-done bear steaks, many people believe that bear meat is tough. If you ask me, no steak is good well done. It’s tough, rubbery and dry.
The best uses for bear meat are roasts, braised foods (like spicy pulled taco meat, YUM!) and ground meat. People frequently believe that bears are as safe to consume in rare form as venison and elk, or even raw if they are exceptionally fresh. However, since bear meat must be cooked thoroughly, it is best to purchase a lot of ground beef and roasts.
Black Bear
Black bears have a strict omnivorous diet. They frequently consume grass, meat, succulent plants, wild berries, insects, and even larvae. The flavor of their meat is affected by the fact that they are not entirely carnivorous. If you’re debating which species of bear is best, black bears are typically preferred for a delectable dish. Picking the right hunting seasons also makes a difference. Black bear meat tastes like whatever it most recently ate.
Grizzly Bear
Some say grizzly bears taste similar to black bears. However, grizzlies consume more carrion, or the flesh, meat, and fish of dead animals, than regular black bears do. Their taste would be so obviously affected by this, making them less-preferred Grizzly bears are also very rarely hunted for their meat because they typically live in enclosed, protected areas.