First published in the November, 1974 issue of Florida Sportsman, this piece is included in Dickey’s Backtrack (1977). As he so often does, the author takes a mundane matter and has you smiling in short order.
The biggest problem in going hunting is that you might kill something. This means you have to figure out some way of disposing of the meat without getting a guilty conscience. Of course, with the cost of red meat at the butcher’s only a fraction under the ounce rate for raw gold, housewives are taking a closer look at rutty old bucks partly cooked on car radiators as triumphant hunters drive home.
The trouble is that the sports hunter has a rigid code of honor. Other than varmint shooting, his code demands that anything he shoots must be eaten. Further, the code requires that hunters loudly claim that any game is a great delicacy.
Some hunters insist that varmints are delectable table fare. Although they themselves have never eaten crow meat, they always have a handy story about some distant friend who eats it regularly and prefers it to roast grouse. For 20 years they have planned to eat crow, but for some obscure reason have not gotten around to it. In my experience, crow meat is not anything that will ever be written up in a gourmet magazine. However, it’s considerably better than boiled owl.
If you are invited to a friend’s home for venison dinner, the code expects you to declare the sinewy old buck roast you’re cudding is more delicious than any U.S. prime filet mignon. The ethics of hunting demand this of you, even while you’re choking and gasping on a chunk of unyielding gristle.
It is patently ridiculous to claim a scrawny deer existing on bark and leaves is infinitely more tasty than a sirloin steak from a steer fattened on feedlot grain. But any hunter will swear it, and become infuriated if you barely hint that the venison you’re bending your knife on is a mite tough.
There is a certain hunter in Ocala who is invariably stricken with pangs of religion following a successful deer hunt. He takes his share of the venison, wraps it neatly in polyethylene bags and deposits them on the doorsteps of a minister. As though leaving a foundling in the night, he rings the doorbell and runs.
It’s one way out of a desperate situation. He clears his conscience because he has not violated the hunter’s code, taking it for granted that the minister will eat the meat or give it to the poor. Further, the hunter casually mentions his charitable work in the community. Without elaborating on specific details, he tells his friends that in his own way he is active at the church.
You may think this is an exaggeration about hunters, but have you ever known a preacher who owned a skinny cat?
The hunting season is one time the sportsman is glad he has a lot of relatives nearby. He magnanimously visits them for the first time in a year, proving his devotion by leaving behind a bag of deer shanks.
No one, in fact, becomes as benevolent as a hunter with a deer carcass. He types a variety of venison recipes and visits neighbors he hasn’t nodded to for months. If a neighbor is so thoughtless as to suggest deer meat is not his favorite food, the hunter quickly shows him the recipes for stewing, roasting and how to prepare his own salami.
While pressing venison on reluctant friends, the hunter drags up old memories. He recalls his early boyhood when he went on his first big game hunt and his father roasted ribs over an open fire. Although he has since traveled the world over, he has never yet had such a delicate and tender morsel, not even in New Orleans or San Francisco.
His eyes become moist as he remembers that faraway time in his lost youth. All he is asking is that the neighbor have a chance to enjoy the ultimate culinary experience. The neighbor sees he cannot refuse and opens the freezer and deposits the package, right alongside freezer-burnt packages from the last three hunting seasons.
A compromise way of utilizing the deer is to have it ground up and padded out with beef. But this borders on violating the hunter’s code. Further, it keeps the hunter from honestly bragging at the office about the tender and juicy steaks his family dined on the night before.
Every hunter who abides by the code develops his own method of disposing of his share of a deer. The favorite way to amortize a dead deer, almost a universal American tradition, is to invite one’s friends for a venison dinner. This is one of those times in life when you find out who your true friends are.
They view your annual dinner the same way they look forward to visits from their mothers-in-law or a review of their income-tax returns by the IRS. There is a ritual which goes with it. All conversations about the dinner and during the dental contest are conducted in code.
When the hunter phones a friend to invite him, the friend says, “How wonderful. We were hoping you’d ask us this year.”
Decoded, this means there’s no way out of accepting.
On arriving at the hunter’s home the night of the ordeal, the friend says, “I can’t wait to get at that venison!” He tries hard to say it with sincerity and enthusiasm.
What he’s really saying is, “I hope the meat was marinated in bicarbonate.”
When the ancient buck is served, a guest tastes a small bite and says, “You know, it’s hard to believe but this is even better than the venison we had last year.”
Deciphered, it means, “If I cut the pieces small enough, I can wash them down without choking.”
When a guest has a second helping urged on him, he hedges, “It’s just great, but I ate too many hors d’oeuvres.”
Translated this means, “Look, bud, how far do you want to push this friendship?”
Leaving the hunter’s home, a guest says, “What a wonderful meal!”
Decoded this reads, “I can’t believe I ate the whole thing.”
Fortunately, there are several ways to overcome the wizened sinews of venison and make it chewable. If you have in your wine cabinet the remains of several bottles, pour the residues into a large crock and add your meat. Don’t worry that you’re mixing red wines and white, that you’re crossing sweet wines with dry. That is not your problem. You cannot be timid. When you’re loading a wildcat cartridge, you don’t hold back on the powder.
Rather than marinating for a mere 24 hours, however, double the muzzle velocity with 48 hours of soaking. Don’t hesitate to put in a dash of white vinegar, which adds extra cutting power.
Keep in mind that most people don’t know how to cook with wines, much less what the food should taste like. There is a certain elegance and sophistication about using wines. Tell your guests that you used an old French recipe liberated by a World War II soldier during the occupation of Rheims. It was a secret formula from the Middle Ages a grateful monk donated to American culture. Not one of your guests will dare to make caustic comments about your venison. It adds to the atmosphere if you learn a few French words and toss them around.
As many hunter-chefs know, there is nothing unethical about using diversionary tactics. You prepare a big spread of gourmet novelties for appetizers such as snails, rattlesnake meat, chocolate-coated grasshoppers and fried locusts. These are expensive, but they help you abide by the code. They divert your guests in one of two ways: they are so repelled that venison suddenly sounds delicious, or, they show their courage by sampling the tidbits and after that, anything tastes good.
Barbecue sauce is great for camouflage. If you coat it thickly enough, the venison can’t be tasted. Of course, this is contingent on all of your guests liking barbecue sauce. If they do, they are fully capable of eating anything on a shingle, if you shellac liberally with sauce.
As any old-time deer hunter will verify, the surest way to make certain your guests consume the venison is to cook it outside on a barbecue grill one hour after they arrive. To work this strategy, you should have a washtub filled with martinis. Keep it handy.
Hunters do not expect to drink from dainty goblets. Serve the martinis in water glasses. Remember that alcohol is a depressant, not a stimulant. When alcohol is ingested, it goes to the brain and the first part which is saturated is the center that controls judgment. That can’t do anything but help your cause.
The first libation increases the appetite and releases inhibitions, both vital to your success. Additional potions numb the motor reflexes and even the taste buds. It’s time to put the venison on the grill. If some of your friends wish to help with the cooking and basting, let them. Everyone needs allies.
If there are any doubts, refill the washtub. Serve the venison while it is piping hot. Your conscience should be clear as you have fulfilled the hunter’s code by making sure the game you shot is eaten. But good!
Passing the Buck is one of 43 stories you’ll find in Jim Casada’s Greatest Deer Hunting Book Ever. This new book’s 465 pages showcase a stellar lineup of outstanding authors including William Faulkner, Robert Ruark, Archibald Rutledge, Gene Hill, Jack O’Connor, Gordon MacQuarrie and many others. In these pages, deer season is always open, and the joys and surprises of the hunt endlessly unfold.
Signed copies are available in both Collector’s and Deluxe editions. Visit sportingclassicsstore.com to order yours.
