SC - venison

[Aldyth at aol.com]

In a message dated 97-11-03 00:51:26 EST, Charles writes:

<< Two recipes - neither of them documentable.
 
 1. Take deer, clean and gut (But _Do_Not_ saw open the chest). put on a 
 spit, and fill with whole fruit, then sew up the cavity.
 
 Serve with any sauce you can think of except chilli (Yoghourt by itself 
 is very good)
 
 2. Take the leftovers of 1, and put in a pot with mushrooms, wine, a few 
 herbs, and onions. Call it a stew and eat it when hot. If there are lots 
 of people to feed, rty adding a grain - barley, oats, or wheat.
 
 Both of these are recipes I have done "in the field" ie on a fire, with 
 great success. It seems that the best way to cook venison is on a spit. 
 The fruit inside it seems to keep it from getting too tough.>>

Aldyth here.  While I have no problem with the recipes, I have a couple of
questions regarding the spit roasting, and field dressing.  I have been a
hunter for over 20 years.  Both bow, and rifle.  Granted, it has been in the
northwest, or close, but I have never been able to get by with not splitting
the chest when field dressing.  The only time I have seen it done was a
fellow with an elk, and he was going to have the thing mounted.  He split the
spine at the rib level, and took that "half" of the elk to the taxidermist.
 He left the rest in the field (it's legal in Wyoming).  I am always willing
to learn a new way to clean game.  I usually start the field dressing with an
incision from the bottom of the ribs, to the throat, and split the chest to
expose (what is left) the heart and lungs, and esophagus.  The "tubes" are
cut at the top of the throat, and the entire top cavity is emptied in tact.
 Then I continue the incison straight down the belly around the genitals to
the anus, cutting around that and tieing it off.( Ideally this can be done on
an incline.  While you are cleaning the upper cavity, the bladder is draining
"naturally")  Clip the diaphragm and split the pelvis, and the lower cavity
pretty much cleans itself.  Takes about 10 minutes and usually no meat is
lost to body juice contamination.

Aldyth the curious

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