Bear Meat

[Ridgerunner]

From reading the regs it looks like you are required to save your bear meat.  Does it taste good?  I really don't have any desire to eat a bear so I'm not sure what I'd do with it if I got one.  Any ideas? 

[boneaddict]

It really depends upon the bear (what it has been eating) whether it tastes good or not.  Most are kind of greasy and gamey compared to venison.  I always make mine into summer sausage and its awesome.  You indeed have to bring it out.

[Coasthunterjay]

Make sausage or jerky sticks. DELICIOUS!!!!! .

[jackelope]

I always make mine into summer sausage and its awesome.

i've heard the same but have never tried it.

[dogtuk]

ridgerunner

i will take it off your hands if you dont want the meat 

[actionshooter]

Summer sausage, jerky, peperoni, breakfast sausage, lunch meat, burger (when used in dishes, not hamburgers).
 All those are great.

[ICEMAN]

The bear that I have eaten is fantastic. We cooled and iced the meat as soon as we could, trimmed away extra fat, and found the meat excellent. Breakfast steaks,  or pan fried in olive oil, even shishkabobs. Very good. I intend to pressure can some meat the next time I get a bear.

[Krusty]

Why would anyone kill a bear if they didn't plan on eating it?

Bear meat is excellent when handled properly, cooled before it starts to go bad, and prepared well.

I love to slow cook a rack of bear ribs, in the Kettle-cooker.
Chops are very good, and a shoulder roast in the crock pot is really really good.
Bear meat is very much like pork, in taste and in the way you cook it.

The fat can be rendered down to a wonderful non-waxy clear oil, that is awesome for fried pastry like donuts or corn fritters, and cooled as a lard it makes light flaky pie crusts and biscuits.

Krusty

[jackelope]

Why would anyone kill a bear if they didn't plan on eating it?

i was wondering the same thing...
i know in alaska, there's coastal bears that are not edible at certain times of the year, fall i think, because of the amount of salmon they eat. there it is not required to pack out the meat during that season, just the head and hide, but i disagree with killing a bear without eating eat. the details may  be  off slightly there.

[VirginiaxBoi]

Krusty,

It sounds like you should write a bear meat cookbook. You would probable make a killin'. 

[boneaddict]

I believe the bear thing in Alaska has to do with Trichinella, not the salmon I believe.  Though fish bears are nasty. 

[jackelope]

bone...pretty sure this is your area of expertise, and i probably have something screwy, but do the bears get the trichonella infection from the salmon?

[Krusty]

VxB,

If you want to read a book, track down a copy of Ralph Flowers' Education of a Bear Hunter, or any of his other books.

He may have been the best bear hunter there ever was, he's a local legend for sure.
__________________________________

Trichinella is a parasite known to inhabit all members of the pig/dog arm of the evolutionary tree.
It's why pigs aren't Kosher, and why westerners don't eat dogs.

It has nothing to do with eating salmon.

Bears in Alaska are somewhat more "fishy" but that's mostly a hunter's wive's tale.
I ate bear from coastal Alaska (brown and black), when I lived up there, and it wasn't unpalletable.

I think it's more indicative of the type of hunters that pay to hunt in Alaska than the bears they are hunting.

It also has to do with the storage and transportation problems faced by tundra outfitters.
Keeping a few fish per person from spoiling, and adding that to a float plane, is hard enough, but 500 pounds of bear meat would require a plane of it's own.

Krusty

[Ridgerunner]

Well maybe I'll have to try it, I just didn't think that a bear could or would be that great to eat.  Seems like I have lots of options as to what to do with it, now I just have to find one.   

[Blacktail135]

 Fair warning.....don't eat a fish eating bear. Nasty! Of all the people that told me that fish eating bear's are nasty, none had actually tried it. So I gotta see for myself. I go and shoot a fish eating bear (2-3 year's ago) about 200 pounder. I took some liquid dishsoap to wash the bear off real good before gutting and skinning him. Didn't want to chance getting anything on the outside on the meat. Got him cleaned up, broke down, sacked up and home. Cooked some backstrap.......nasty! Now if you get a fish eating bear that hasn't been on the fish for very long....that may be different. After reading a book year's ago about the first feller's to cross the Olympic Mtn's. I had to try eating some fried bear fat. Seem's those boy's were in such a hurry to be the first across (there were 2-3 other team's waiting for spring) they went a bit early and about starved until they shot a bear. They made mention of frying the fat and drinking it. So I went up and shot a little berry eating bear (about a 100 pounder) brought him home, cubed up some of the fat (about 3/4"-1" cube's), fried them until they were a little crispy/crunchy on the outside and ate them.......all of them! Delicious. They are very rich though. Have fun, Patrick.