Fresh or Butcher Shop Venison Review

Last autumn, I visited the beautiful little town of Cresco, Iowa, the place where my mother had lived as a little girl.  Grandpa Fiske had been the proprietor of a successful general store and had built a beautiful house for him and his family there during the early part of the 20th Century.  I got to see those places and I also got to meet Kathy and Chuck, owners of the Cresco Motel.  We got to be great friends and they were wonderful to me.  Among many other gestures of friendship, they invited me to dinner the day before I left.  At the appointed hour, we gathered in the part of the motel which was their home -- the sort of immaculate, beautifully decorated and well appointed nest which you would expect to find in small-town Iowa.  Still, I was a little apprehensive about dinner because the main course was going to be something I had never eaten before ... venison.

In that part of the country, hunters still bag and butcher their own venison which they then eat as their main meat staple during the year.  Hunting is a serious thing here enjoyed by people who know what they are doing and go out armed with rifles and crossbows.  So this venison was important and it was important that I liked it but it is human nature to dread the unknown.  I had heard rumors that venison had a strong "gamey" taste and I wasn't even sure what that was.  Moreover, could I really bring myself to eat something which had once looked and acted like Bambi?  As it turned out, I enjoyed the venison so much that I not only asked for "seconds" but even accepted an after-dinner sample of a cold sausage made from ground venison which could be sliced for use on sandwiches.  (So much for Bambi!)  I found that there was no gamey taste at all -- Cathy and Chuck explained that this was a matter of how venison is butchered and handled. 

With this experience still fresh in mind, I was intrigued by the excellent Fresh and Butcher Shop Venison review written by Kid-Kansas, one of our best writers and an expert chef.  I decided to check out the nutritional values of fresh venison.

STATS:

According to NutritionData.com, a 3-oz. single serving of venison contains 127 calories with only 18 calories from fat.  There are two grams total fat, one gram saturated fat, zero trans fat, 75 mg. cholesterol, 48 mg. sodium, zero each total carbs, dietary fiber, and sugars, 25 grams protein and 20% (D.V.) Iron.

TASTE TIP:

Venison tasted to me like mild, tender beef.  For cooking tips, see Kid-Kansas' review but I will add my own advice.  To enjoy venison, you have to stop worrying about what happened to Bambi's mother.  Forget for a little while at least all about that kid who adopted the fawn in "The Yearling".  One of the major drawbacks in marketing venison in this country has been that it is made from creatures who are possessed of an almost heartbreaking beauty and grace.  We all tend to feel sentimental about deer but the grown-up reality is that they are part of the food chain.  Beyond that, wild deer today are in serious trouble as their natural enemies (other than us) are mostly gone and the deer have become over-populated.  If nobody hunted them, the fields of rural America would be full of starving deer staggering around, trying to find something to eat.  To be able to enjoy venison is to live in a way which doesn't place undue stress on the environment as the animals don't have to be artificially housed and fed. 

I must confess that lifelong habits have inclined me to continue to eat more conservative meats as a rule but I have developed a whole new respect for people who make venison a major part of their diet.  In many parts of the country, if it weren't for hunting season, human beings and deer alike would be dying terrible deaths from starvation.