@farmerman,
I'm a city girl. I know there are butchers around here that specialize in wild meat. I don't hunt, but of the friends of mine who do, the only meat they turn into jerky or pepperoni is deer meat. It's very fatty. I've never had a venison roast or steak.
At Christmas, here at the local fort, a replica of the first Hudson's bay post in the area, they offer a dinner that the first settlers would have eaten. It consists of pickled moose snout and real beaver tails. Not the Toronto pastry. I've never tried either delicacy, but the pastry is pretty damn good. I've cooked moose meat a few times when I've been given it. You have to add oil, as it's very dry. I normally get it ground up and turn it into a spaghetti sauce or make a stew. It has to simmer for a good long while though.
NFLD has more moose than humans, and I'd imagine they probably know a few things about making it palatable.
I've had bear meat too, I'm not sure what species, black or grizzly. Perhaps, because it's from the pig family and if you don't cook the living daylights out of it you can get trichinosis, or maybe because it was an older beast, I found it grisly. The natives use bear fat on their hair, it makes it shiny. It's kind of stinky though, it probably also protects them from being mauled whilst walking in the bush.
I've only ever had mutton done Jamaican style, jerked or in India with curry. They again, I'm not sure if it was goat or not.
My taste buds have been spoiled. All the meat, pork, and lamb up here is grain fed. I've tried beef in other places and you can tell the difference. Corn and hay fed animals taste like corn and hay. Ewwww!! Oddly, even though my family in Ireland raise sheep, I've never had lamb in Ireland..
