There are various ways of cooking venison steak, but the recipe given by Game Warden Walter Neal is still pronounced the best by Maine woodsmen. It is that followed by Hannibal Hamlin and other famous hunters and diners.
"Get a buck deer that is fat and not over five years of age," says Mr. Neal. "One that weighs one hundred pounds is better than no deer, though the best should weigh nearly two hundred pounds. Before the body is cold, if possible, slash off some thick slices of steak. Have them nearly two inches thick and big enough to cover the bottom of an old-style spider if possible.
"Now get a thick and heavy cast-iron spider red-hot above the coals. Be sure and do this, because the hotter the spider is the better. And when the spider is glowing and sparkling with heat, slap in a slice of steak. Do not use any butter or any form of fat, but let the raw meat fall direct upon the hot iron, and then let it sizzle and smell and smoke for about a minute.
"Now flop it over on the other side, and repeat until the camp is so full of choking smoke and the smell of burning meat that you must carry the heated spider outdoors to get your breath.
"Tip the burnt and smoking steak on to a big plate, slash it deeply all over the surface with a sharp knife and throw on butter until the meat is afloat. Then salt and pepper to taste, after which nobody needs any directions as to what to do next.
"Venison cooked in this way and eaten with strong coffee and hot cream of tartar biscuit forms the best meat that it is possible to serve to kings and queens or jacks. And I know exactly what I am talking about."
The market men and hotel cooks of eastern Maine make a sharp distinction between the flesh of the deer that is raised in Maine and that which is captured by the hunters in the Southern States, calling the home product venison and all other kinds deer meat, or if the animals are very small and without fat, they modify the term and scornfully call it deer veal.
The newest Bangor plan of cooking venison is to cut moderately thick slices from the round of a buck and grill the flesh over a white-hot fire of anthracite, letting the greedy flames lick and bathe the curling meat and crisp its edges until it is hot clear through and cooked on the outside, though still somewhat rare in the interior.
The person who is said to have introduced this manner of cooking from Canada is Edward Stetson, president of the First National Bank of Bangor, who spends much time every year in his camp back from North Twin Dam on the west branch of Penobscot River. So particular is Mr. Stetson concerning how the venison of his shooting must be prepared for his guests in camp that before the beginning of open season every year he sends up the necessary anthracite by rail, his servants carrying it in baskets from the station far back into the wilderness, where it is used solely for broiling venison.
The men of unclassified employment who pass from May to October in raising hay, oats and potatoes to sell to the near-by lumber camps and who swing axes in the deep woods from October to May declare that the best venison is from the carcass of a buck shot in November and frozen and hung up under cover until midwinter.