Thread: Meat Storage Without Refrigeration

Those are encouraging stories thanks 30.06king.

Barry... I feel the same way about venison (and beef) being more likely to keep better than pork and poultry and maybe mutton. I am never likely to try it, but I have listened with interest to stories of game birds being hung by the neck until the body drops away... and hares being hung with their guts in until the belly flaps turn green.

Back around 1969 when I was at Nelson College we were studying animal anatomy and I offered to try and get some possums to bring in to the next class. I took my Gorosabel double shotgun on to a neighbours place along with a bulky spotlight. Didn't see any possums, but I shot maybe five hares. I think this was on a Saturday night, but our next biology class wasn't going to happen until the following Tuesday. I stuffed the hares in a sack and left them on the shed floor. The boys dissected the hares, and the teacher rescued some good bits to take home.... something that was a bit unusual to my way of thinking. I wouldn't be keen to eat shotgun-damaged, potentially rotting, meat that had been butchered by students on laboratory benches that might have been contaminated with all sorts of stuff that isn't common nowadays (mercury, phosphorus etc). When I saw the teacher after the event, I asked him what the meat was like. (I think he'd made a dish called 'jugged hare' which I think there may be more than one version of). He replied 'It was beautiful Coote'. That teacher was a heck of a good guy. If I remember correctly his name was Ian Watts. Top bloke.