Black Bears can be Dangerous!!

I have eaten bear meat. It is dark, with a fine tender texture with rich flavor, very greasy. It has to be cooked just so, but the bear meat I've eaten was damn good and I would eat it again, provided I did the cooking!

I hear you though Mentor and what you say is sensible.





Mentor = H4831
 
I am not big on bear for chops and steaks, but it's good in spaghetti sauce, meatloaf, stews and curries.

Every year at our clubs annual banquet, I make some bear recipe, mostly for the benefit of all the non hunters that show up, and want to try a variety of game meat.

This year, I had these same people stopping me in the street for a month later telling me how much they loved the bear curry I made.

Everybody has thier own tastes, and I sure like moose, elk, deer or sheep over bear, but bear has it's place.

PS You have to remove most of the fat, or it's going to taste strong...


I do not eat bear meat either this is not only due to the trichinosis problem but also due to the digestive system design of bears, any impurities they ingests into their bodies are absorbed into their meat and when we eat it we also get those impurities absorbed into our systems.

Bear fat is also one of the hardest things for our digestive systems to digest.
Click to expand...

I've never read anything about this topic, of how bears transfer impurities to us, more so than beef, moose, pork, deer, chicken, etc.

Do you have a link to this? Sounds interesting.
 
This year, I had these same people stopping me in the street for a month later telling me how much they loved the bear curry I made.
Click to expand...

I've had his bear spaghetti sauce - it's pretty damn tasty. :)

I don't like bear steaks as much, but i do love the roasts. And the sausages are really awesome.

You can see pretty quick if your bear is wormy. Don't harvest that bear if it is if you don't like it. The law requires EDIBLE portions to be harvested, and if the bear is diseased or the like, i don't believe it's required.

In bc - you can send the tounge in to see if the bear had any trich free of charge. But personally i don't bother. I just cook it properly.

The key to eating bear is to get rid of the fat. Connective tissues are fine, but the actual bear fat is pure horridness. It tastes like glue at the best of times. It contains almost all the 'gamey' taste, and if there's any on your meat it'll spoil the flavour.

Cut it all off - then cook, and you're fine.

I have wondered tho if bears taste different province to province. (Wouldn't be the first animal - eat a manitoba duck then try one from the valley here, no comparison.) I hear folks from some provinces claim they'd rather take a bullet than eat bear, but i find bear here done well is better than a lot of the venison i've eaten. It's too tough to make great steaks, but the roasts and such turn out very well indeed.
 
Gatehouse said:
I've never read anything about this topic, of how bears transfer impurities to us, more so than beef, moose, pork, deer, chicken, etc.

Do you have a link to this? Sounds interesting.
Click to expand...

Not in front of me but think of this due to the design of herbivours (cows/elk/moose/deer/etc) unlike a bear they have several stomachs first one basically intakes all of the foods that are eaten then the foods are regurgitated chewed up impuities are passed out of the animal while the good stuff is reingested into the next stomach.

Bears are not exclusive too this either and this isn't exactly how it works but you can get the idea.

Think of it this way if the animal has a digestive system like a bear it has the same issues if it has a digestive system like a cow than there isn't an issue.

Not saying you will die from eating bear meat :D saying it isn't as good for us and digestive friendly as meat from herbivours.

Remember bears are in the same family as pigs.
 
Last edited:
Then I will put it this way bears are classed in the same family as pigs not dogs/racoons.

I'm heading out spring salmon/sturgeon fishing in the Fraser River for the day.

Crazy salmon limits on right now we can only keep a spring salmon that is between 24" - 30" and have to release anything else.

That means you can't keep a Jack spring that is going to die anyway or a larger spring that has been netted, lost a major amount of scales and is worn out and may die anyway after being released.

Restrictions should be no bottom bouncing and no catch and release on Spring salmon and keep the first fish you catch if you continue to fish after that your hit with a major fine.
 
Last edited:
Camp Cook said:
They are mammals but mammals are broken down into other smallers groups.

Ok boats ready I'm leaving... :D
Click to expand...

Yes, I'm well aware of the taxonomy of mammals but you were trying to link the bears' family tree to the pigs' family tree and I was just pointing out where the commonality began and ended. Bears are members of the ursidae family while pigs belong to the Suidae family.

Here's what their family trees look like and you'll see that the last commonality is that they are mammals:

Pigs

Kingdom — Animalia

Phylum — Chordata
Class — Mammalia

Order: Artiodactyla: Even toed-ungulates (cattle, sheep,
goats, deer, buffalo,etc) vs. Perrisodactyla (odd
toed, horses, etc)
Suborder: Suiformes vs. Ruminantia (Ruminants) and Tylopoda
(camels)
Family: Suidae (True pigs) vs Tayassuidae
Genera: Sus
Species: scrofa



Bears

Kingdom — Animalia

Phylum — Chordata
Class — Mammalia
Order — Carnivora
Family — Ursidae
Genus — Ursus
 
Last edited:
Brutus said:
Slightly off topic but close, 'I heard it through the grapevine,' that bear fat is highly valued for it's usefulness in baking delicate pastries/breads & such.

Can anyone confirm or refute this?
Click to expand...

Yes, both black bear and grizzly fat is highly prized by those with backwoods knowledge and you are indeed correct that it can be rendered and used for baking. I've had the good fortune to taste baking from grizz fat on a number of occasions and I certainly couldn't tell the difference from lard. It's also used for making hand cream and is a great remedy for dry teats on milking cows. I've seen it used on saddles and harness and I'm certain there are a million more uses in the backwoods.

I've got nothing against eating bear meat. I wouldn't rate it up there with elk or sheep but if prepared correctly, it makes a tasty meal.
 
My Mother cooked for a large family during the brutal depression days of the
1930s, in the real boondocks of bushland Saskatchewan. We lived on wild meat, virtually year round. Everything from elk, moose and deer, to great numbers of prairie chicken (sharptail grouse) and willow grouse.
She wouldn't eat bear meat, but just loved the fat for making pies and other pastries.
Long after those years of freezing out-houses, no running water, electricity, telephone or radio in the house were over, and she lived with all the modern luxuries, she still made a large batch of mincemeat for pies in the fall, largely to divvy up with us. Amazingly, her preferred meat for mince meat, was deer meat! She would always ask one of us if we could get her some deer meat and some fat from a fall bear, so she could make her delicious pies!
Brutus, I think this should answer your question.
And bisonhd, we also, used bear grease on our leather shoes, preferring it over commercial varieties of conditioners.
 
I watched a show where they claimed some top pastry chefs used bear lard as their secret ingredient. Sorry that I can't be more specific.
 
H4831 said:
My Mother cooked for a large family during the brutal depression days of the
1930s, in the real boondocks of bushland Saskatchewan. We lived on wild meat, virtually year round. Everything from elk, moose and deer, to great numbers of prairie chicken (sharptail grouse) and willow grouse.
She wouldn't eat bear meat, but just loved the fat for making pies and other pastries.
Long after those years of freezing out-houses, no running water, electricity, telephone or radio in the house were over, and she lived with all the modern luxuries, she still made a large batch of mincemeat for pies in the fall, largely to divvy up with us. Amazingly, her preferred meat for mince meat, was deer meat! She would always ask one of us if we could get her some deer meat and some fat from a fall bear, so she could make her delicious pies!
Brutus, I think this should answer your question.
And bisonhd, we also, used bear grease on our leather shoes, preferring it over commercial varieties of conditioners.
Click to expand...

Dont fergit the saskatoonberries - great tarts and pies !
 
They used the bear fat for oil to deep fry the doughnuts also called bear sign in. My Grandma did it all the time, pie dough and pastry required lard rendered from pig fat. Grandma always said "who'd eat that crap" when referring to bear. Grandma has been gone over 40 years but I still grin when I think of her fine distinction between using something and eating it.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom