Posted by Suzanne McMinn @ 5:05 am | Permalink
Daily Farmhouse Journal
So somebody gave me a deer last fall. I didn’t shoot it! I’d shoot myself before I’d shoot a deer. Or I’d feel like it. Cuz I don’t think I could shoot myself. I couldn’t shoot a deer, either, but I couldn’t resist the culinary experience of accepting the deer. And then making something out of it. But then I stuffed the packages in the freezer and forgot about them until I accidentally took a package out yesterday, thinking it was something else, and when it defrosted, I found out it was jerky strips…. Deer jerky strips. Not that I’ve ever made jerky before, but I bought a seasoning package for it last fall. So I dug the package out and decided it must be Fate, it was time for the Great Deer Jerky Experiment.
The directions were….extensive. Let’s just say it started with a discussion about pioneers. It had lots of headings that said things like IMPORTANT!! READ CAREFULLY!! Somewhere in the BOOK of directions, it said to TASTE THE JERKY OFTEN during cooking. And REMEMBER TO TASTE THE JERKY OFTEN during cooking. And TEST FREQUENTLY during cooking. And WHEN THE JERKY IS COOKED TO YOUR LIKING, STOP COOKING. (They like capital letters in these directions.) And something else about pioneers.
I said to 52, “How am I supposed to know when it’s cooked to my liking? I’ve never tasted jerky before!”
52: You’ve never eaten jerky?”
Me: “When would I eat jerky? I grew up in the suburbs! When I was a kid, my mother bought me Gerber’s Chocolate Pudding for snacks! (Okay, and that was all the way up till I was 14. Why my mother bought me baby pudding for snacks when I was 14 is too deep to discuss in a post about jerky.) I’d never even heard of jerky!”
52: “How could you never hear of jerky? It’s what you put in your pocket when you go for a walk in the woods.”
Me: “I thought that was granola.”
I’d tell you what he said then, but it mostly involved laughing.
But look! I did make some jerky!
I’m, like, a pioneer.
Except if I’d been there? They would have had some granola. With raisins. And chocolate chips. And some Gerber’s Chocolate Pudding. Oh jeez, just forget it, as long as we’re going back in time, let’s bring some Doritos and Girl Scout Thin Mints.
Anybody want some deer jerky that I’m afraid to taste? (I COOKED IT WITHOUT TASTE-TESTING IT! THE DIRECTIONS ARE MAD AT ME! AND WHAT AM I SUPPOSED TO DO WITH IT? I CAN’T EAT BAMBI!)
**Update: I decided I couldn’t do a culinary experiment and not try the result. So, I tried a tiny piece of the jerky. After, you know, 14 ate some first. 14 thought it was good, but not tough/dry enough. Still, he liked it and said he would eat the rest. He took some of it to school and his friends said it tasted gamey. (What?! It’s deer jerky! Of course it’s gamey! LOL.) I thought it tasted good, but it is SO salty! Maybe jerky is just too salty for my taste? Any of you who have jerky recipes that you love, if you email them to me, I’ll try it next time. 14 loves jerky, so I’ll make it again, maybe with beef, though……
