Recipe Spotlight

Stir Things Up With a Taste of Wild Game

- CAROL CORLEY

IF A WILD GAME DINNER sounds exotic, it is. I remember once being invited to a dinner put together by a group of friends who hunted — and they hunted just about everything. The entrée that still sticks in my mind is bear meatloaf. It was wonderful.

Also tasty were the deer, moose, duck, rabbit, and wild turkey that hunters offered. No one brought a goose, squirrel, or pheasant that evening. The meat had been collected over a period of time, carefully handled after harvest, safely stored and prepared. The flavors were very special and quite different to this traditionalist.

First and foremost, it is important to make sure the wild game you will be cooking and serving is safe. There are some risks to be considered with wild meat — salmonella and E. coli come first to mind. Trichinosis is another. It’s a disease that comes from the Trichinella parasite that used to be a risk from eating pork but now is pretty much restricted to eating undercooked wild game.

There are other risks, also, and anyone planning to prepare and cook wild game would need to become familiar with safe preparation and handling, as well as what to look for in the field and at home. That is outside the scope of this article. We are looking at the fun part — the cooking and eating.