I ONCE received a letter from the wife of an Eastern man who had
removed to the Great West, in which bitter complaints were made of
the scarcity of certain comforts—ice-cream and candy among them—to
which she had been accustomed in other days. “My husband shot a fine
deer this morning,” she wrote, “but I could never endure _venzon_.
Can you tell me of any way of cooking it so as to make it tolerably
eatible?” I did not think it very singular that one whose chief craving
in the goodly land in which she had found a home was for cocoanut
cakes and chocolate caramels, should not like the viand the name of
which she could not spell. Nor did I wonder that she failed to make
it “eatible,” or doubt that her cooking matched her orthography. But
I am amazed often at hearing really skilful housewives pronounce
it an undesirable dish. In the hope of in some measure correcting
this impression among Eastern cooks, who, it must be allowed, rarely
taste really fresh venison, I have written out, with great care and
particularity, the following receipts, most of which I have used in my
own family with success and satisfaction.
The dark color of the meat,—I mean now not the black, but rich
reddish-brown flesh,—so objectionable to the uninitiated, is to the
gourmand one of its chief recommendations to his favor. It should also
be fine of grain and well coated with fat.
Keep it hung up in a cool, dark cellar, covered with a cloth, and use
as soon as you can conveniently.