Many Maine hunters are game for anything

Around these parts, Down Easters eat just about anything the sea offers, or at least they could if they need to. A family wouldn’t starve if in its larder were jars of mackerel or pickled periwinkles and in its freezer, scallops and cod. When the tide – and income – were low, someone could always dig a pail of clams or roast a greasy old sea duck.

Families around here wouldn’t starve even if the local grocery store closed it doors like the paper mills and shoe factories. Why, there are plenty of folks “game for anything,” especially this time of year with a new snow cover perfect for tracking.

Old-timers in town talk about eating moose, bear, rabbit, wild turkeys, partridge and obviously, deer: everything from venison liver to back strap. One fellow asserts that his mother fed the family “anything that ran across the yard.”

That was then; this is now. And the chatter in the local cafes and coffee shops hasn’t changed one iota. Not during hunting season, that is, when tale after tale is told about some rauncher of a deer being sighted up-country.

The talk is as colorful as the bright orange vests and hats. And it inevitably leads to stories from hunting camps or legends of hunting feats. Maine storyteller John Gould used to tell this one about moose fritters:

Seems a hunter agreed to cook for his party so long as nobody complained about the food. After he tired of cooking, he began serving poor meals to encourage complaints, and his companions pretended they liked everything so none of them would have to take over. In a final effort, the hunter scraped up moose droppings in the woods and fried them for breakfast. “What’s this?” they asked.

“Moose fritters,” he said. “My, my,” they said, “unusual, but goo-ood.”

That story is no more believable than any other tall hunting tales swapped around the wood stove along with swigs from a bottle of coffee brandy. But it’s the season. Just as ghost stories are told near Halloween, hunters regale each other into “high-sterics” about somebody being scairt to go in the woods, about another getting soaked to his belt-buckle after slipping in the stream, about misplaced lunches and missed shots. Tale after tale, generation after generation, November after November.

Which brings us to another Gould offering:

“One year Nellie Bubier of Rangeley went to visit a daughter in Floridy, and a policeman came to shoot a rattlesnake under the steps of the house next door. When the policeman’s revolver went off, Nellie jumped and said, ‘Jeezus-to-mighty! They sure hunt in close down here.'”

Then, there’s the old family recipe for Smoked Back Strap: 21/2 to 3 pounds venison back strap, 2 cloves garlic (cut into slivers), 3 cups hearty red wine, 11/2 cups soy sauce, 1/2 cup Worcestershire sauce. Place venison and seasonings in large pan, refrigerate for six hours or overnight. Take meat out and allow it to come to room temperature. Make a fire in a round smoker – the kind with the pan of water in the bottom – with 10 pounds of charcoal. When charcoal is white, scatter pecan wood chips over the hot coals. Place meat directly on the grid and close the cover. Do not open the smoker for three hours.

And nevermind the moose fritters.