Why bear pepperoni

Sorry not trying to get in a peeing contest here "why not" but would you not consider the Cuisinart a convential home smoker cooker? Maybe there's a countertop version i'm unaware of? not trying to be a smarty pants... But I do agree with you completely about Trichinosis, and need for very good cooking practices, and research into the capabilities of ones cooker/smoker.. I should have said it a bit beter in my first post on the subject i guess... Why up until recently reading in another post on CGN i had never even thought about trichinosis in bear... I'm just glad that a good CGN'er warned of its presence in bear meat.

EDIT: I just went to the crappy tire website and watched the video of the other cheapy non electrics i think you are talking about.. WOW.. I completely agree with you on those.. Steer clear of them for sure... too small and looks like it would be a bit diffucult to regulate the constant temps.
Why not? said:
gmctech,

Thanks for clarifying your post. You designed it, and your smoker that you built yourself will certainly do the job.

If you read again my post, I specifically said, "Conventional home smokers rarely, if ever, get internal temperature of meats to 140, let alone 160F."

Ted
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I should also clarify my post about smokers. When smoking my bear sausage and Pastrami, I checked the internal temperature of the thickest parts with TWO thermometers just to be certain I was doing it correctly. If your smoker can't reach the required temperature, you can finish cooking in your home oven. But temperatures MUST be maintained high enough and long enough in all parts of the meat.

Eating bear meat is about as dangerous as hand loading ammunition IMHO. Screw up and you'll be sorry. Take reasonable care and results can be gratifying.

Another comment about the pictures of roundworms... intestinal roundworms are NOT something that affects meat quality and unlike trichinella, are not infectious to people eating muscle meat.

I have done necropsy examinations of hundreds of pigs over the years that were infected with roundworms, it is a very common affliction of many wild and domestic animals, but is especially common in pigs raised on hobby farms and "organic" production methods. Roundworms are specifically adapted to the host animal and generally not infective cross- species. A roundworm infection is unsightly, unappetizing, not good for the animal, but has no human health effect on the meat.

I guarantee that everyone who has eaten pork has consumed meat that came from a pig with roundworms at some point of its life. There is NO affect on human health. So please don't put a picture of roundworms in this discussion as a logical reason not to eat bear meat. If you eat bacon you have the same risk of contacting a roundworm infection as you do if eaten bear meat from an infected animal. Zero.
 
I think people that have had bad experiences with bear meat have had bad bear meat.

I try to get a two to four year old bear and it gets gutted immediately. Then I skin it, separate it it into sections (shoulders, chest, back end. and cool the meat immediately, take it home and cut it up. I bring along a cooler full of frozen 2 litre water bottles every time I go out. If I get home late in the day I might put the sections in an empty deep freeze I have and turn it on long enough to give the meat a good chill.

You do not leave bear ungutted. You do not leave the hide on. You don't hang it.

Shoot it, gut it, skin it, cool it, cut it.

Like I said, I go for roasts, stews and burger.

Any prepared sausages, pepperonis and salami-type sausages I have tasted made by commercial operators tasted like Safeway garlic ring to me. And I have been offered lots by various buddies over the years. One guy's home made goose pepperoni wasn't any better.

"Hey, try my moose sausages," guys say. And they've all had pork and pork fat added, I might as well have gone to the butcher and bought pork sausages.

I just like the meat as is. My wife and I consumed an entire elk in just over one year without once considering that we needed sausages.
 
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pepperoni is the perfect solution for those lacking the time/interest/skill to make something reasonably edible out of their wild game every time they want to enjoy it. I usually just lop off a few good cuts of steak and the rest goes to sausage/burger/pepperoni.
 
Rugdoc said:
I think people that have had bad experiences with bear meat have had bad bear meat.
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Good post. I've seen people treat that deer they just shot with the same careless, disregard and then wonder, 'Why does it taste 'bad'? :rolleyes:

With that said, I've had grass fed bear that was delicious.
 
Longwalker said:
Another comment about the pictures of roundworms... intestinal roundworms are NOT something that affects meat quality and unlike trichinella, are not infectious to people eating muscle meat.

I have done necropsy examinations of hundreds of pigs over the years that were infected with roundworms, it is a very common affliction of many wild and domestic animals, but is especially common in pigs raised on hobby farms and "organic" production methods. Roundworms are specifically adapted to the host animal and generally not infective cross- species. A roundworm infection is unsightly, unappetizing, not good for the animal, but has no human health effect on the meat.

I guarantee that everyone who has eaten pork has consumed meat that came from a pig with roundworms at some point of its life. There is NO affect on human health. So please don't put a picture of roundworms in this discussion as a logical reason not to eat bear meat. If you eat bacon you have the same risk of contacting a roundworm infection as you do if eaten bear meat from an infected animal. Zero.
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I didn't say it was a guaranteed health risk, but what I can guarantee is that anyone who guts a bear/pig/whatever ,which looks like someone dumped a bucket of cooked spaghetti into it, will not eat the meat.
The same can be said for any domestic meat, but then we really don't get to see what goes on in a slaughter facility do we? One reason I pretty much eat only wild game, and it's all cooked well done, regardless of species or cut.

Fall Guy said:
Good post. I've seen people treat that deer they just shot with the same careless, disregard and then wonder, 'Why does it taste 'bad'? :rolleyes:

With that said, I've had grass fed bear that was delicious.
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Which farmer was raising bears? :D Just because you shot him in a blueberry or quack grass patch doesn't mean that's all he ever ate. Like pigs and chickens, they'll eat nearly anything they come across, from berries to week old maggot infested roadkill.
 
bearkilr said:
Which farmer was raising bears? :D Just because you shot him in a blueberry or quack grass patch doesn't mean that's all he ever ate. Like pigs and chickens, they'll eat nearly anything they come across, from berries to week old maggot infested roadkill.
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The young bear was shot a couple of hours north of Thunder Bay in the middle of nowhere early fall. It was feeding on grass when it was shot. And it's stomach was full of grass when it was gutted. My point is that it wasn't a 'dump bear'.
 
Bear meat is just like other meat the younger is better. You have to decide yourself if you want a P&Y trophy (probably not the best tasting meat) or you want to fill your freezer (probably not the biggest rug or skull). I don't mind eating once a while.

Jozsef
 
the spank said:
I have eaten bear twice in my life and both times left me with the same thoughts. That is nasty, vile stuff best left to run around the woods. I won't ever shoot a bear unless it becomes a nuisance or protection problem. They taste so horrible IMO that I have no good reason to harvest one myself.
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Thats pretty much my assessment of bear as well, and it was properly handled and from out in the sticks.

So, the answer to the OPs question - Why bear pepperoni? - is simple, because otherwise it tastes like bear meat.
 
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