VENISON.
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.