Mystery Meat

There are scary things in the freezer here.  Life in the country means that food is often processed without the benefit of a licensed, certified butcher.  It also means that there is meat in there which is from "game"--mainly deer as these folks hunt. In order to prepare dinner I need to go into the deep freeze (that would be a chest type freezer that requires leaning into and routing around in) and snag a package of something to cook. It is an ordeal for which I have to be mentally prepared.  First the lid to the freezer will not stay up on its own so I have to hold it with one hand while trying to dig around dead body parts for a suitable dinner dish. I have fears that I will accidentally fall into the freezer, the lid will shut and I will either freeze or suffocate. Yikes! There is a lot of mystery meat in there as there are packages of meat which have no label and are in unrecognizable forms. (is this beef? deer? what part?) Do it yourself butchering seems to create interesting cuts of meat to say the least. And then I have to don gloves to do this as my hands freeze in the process of digging in a pile of frozen parts. I feel just like Nanook hunting for meat in a frozen land.

Now I have to say on word on hunting here. I am not against hunting per se.  There are way too many deer in the world and someone needs to control their population. I also feel that if you are going to kill the deer you should use it to feed people. Just not me. And please don't tell me that there is nothing wrong with venison. I have eaten it and, properly prepared it can be fine.  BUT part of the proper preparation means that someone who knew what they were doing butchered the thing to begin with and I do not know whether that is the case here. I don't even know that the deer was properly killed and not found lying along the roadside somewhere a victim of a vehicular fatality. Ok, maybe I am exaggerating. Maybe not.

Once I find something that looks recognizable I haul it up to the kitchen for the defrosting process. It is a gamble at this point as to whether we will have dinner or take out.  I wait with suspense for the meat to thaw so that I can then attempt to recreate my best impression of CSI by making a determination as to what type of meat it is and what cut it might be.  I often have to answer the question "What's for dinner?" with "I'm not sure yet.....check back with me when I get the DNA results".  Sometimes we have dinner and sometimes the dogs get it.  I am beginning to seriously consider becoming a vegetarian. At least we haven't started killing and eating the chickens in the hen house---yet-anyway.

Thank goodness for take out pizza!