Cute and tasty!

Deer meat.  In the U.S. we have a number of men who like to wake up early, put on some bright orange and camouflage clothing, load up their guns and head out to the woods where [... Look Who’s Coming to Dinner!]]]> Yet another post not for vegetarians!  (What does this say about me? Am I too obsessed with meat?)

Cute and tasty!

Deer meat.  In the U.S. we have a number of men who like to wake up early, put on some bright orange and camouflage clothing, load up their guns and head out to the woods where they hopefully will snag a buck!  When they are successful, they butcher the meat, freeze it, give it away, and all this with the intent of eating it.  Therefore I believe there are many families that regularly eat venison.  I have myself a number of times, since my father was an avid hunter.  I even tried going with him one time.  Thankfully we did not shoot any cute animals that day, and it was cold and boring, so yeah, another once in a lifetime experience.

Ok, so we’ve established that Americans do eat venison, but do they put it on restaurant menus?  If we do, it certainly isn’t very common.  I’ve seen it offered on a number German menus, but never in the States.  The thing is every single restaurant I went into in New Zealand offered venison in some form.  I even came across a place selling venison meat pies.  Now, I was well aware that the Kiwis ate lamb, and I wasn’t at all surprised to see beef and even some pork on the menu, but the abundance of venison was a bit of a shock.  Then I noticed that there were plenty of sheep farms, sometimes intermixed with the cows, and yes, many, many deer farms.  I saw one farm that had a paddock for sheep, next to the cows, which in turn were next to the deer. I have nothing to corroborate this, but I’m pretty sure that no one is dressing up in ugly clothes and waking too, too early to harvest them, so it may not be quite as much fun there, but they do eat it, and according to one guy, “It’s quite nice.”   

So, there it is, if you like to eat venison, go to New Zealand.  I can tell you, it was tasty!