Why?

Adventures of a Modern Day, Middle-Aged Hero, on the Glory Road(to family security)

6.14.2012

Here, Kitty, Kitty...

In effort to clean out his freezer at home, one of the guys I worked with today brought in a roast from a cougar that he harvested last year.  The roast was properly seasoned, covered in bacon, and placed on the Traeger for 4 hours, before being declared 'ready for lunch'. 

It wasn't half bad...I mean...you could wrap a shoe from my closet in bacon, then smoke it for 4 hours, and I'm sure it wouldn't be half bad.   I had previously had some of this same cougar in a chili a few months ago...but, once something has slow cooked in chili for a few hours, you can't really get a taste of the meat.

More important...it didn't taste like whatever I had thought cougar would taste like. While the pre-cooked roast looked red like beef, the finished flavor was more like pork...and not just do to the bacon wrapped around it.  I'm 100% certain I could give it to my wife, and 'cougar' would be about the 18th thing she guessed for a source for the meat. 

So...that's good to know, you know...if I ever actually SEE a cougar in the wild.  Every year, I buy a cougar tag.  It's kind of a scam here in Washington, because a cougar tag is only like three dollars if you are already buying a deer/elk tag...so, I'm willing to be one of the 90% of the hunters in Washington get a tag 'just in case'.(60,000+ tags, around 120 harvested animals).  I know that's how this guy shot his...target of opportunity...it was nothing he went out looking for. 

It's just nice to know that if I do happen to run into one, the meat isn't something that would be wasted. 

1 comment:

  1. There were a lot of mountain men who used to like getting a lion now and then when they felt like something with a stronger flavor than venison or elk.

    As an acquaintance of mine used to say:
    "Critters is critters; they all taste like meat."

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