Bear oil/grease below is the base of this easy-to-make bear balm recipe.
The many uses of bear fat is legendary in early America.
It is used for cooking, frying, pastry, lubricating, candle making, skin and hair care, waterproofing boots, shoes, and softening/protecting leather are but a few.
It is an easy to make recipe which looks alot like mayonaise.
Ingredients:
1 cup black bear rendered oil/grease.
1/4 cup Jojoba Oil
1/4 cup cosmetic stearic acid beads heated to liquid.
Heat bear oil and organic stearic acid separately in a water bath below. The stearic acid beads liquify at 180F.
Combine hot bear oil and stearic acid liquid quickly in a glass mixing bowl while hot and mix. Then add the Jojoba oil and Essences and mix again by hand.
I used 50 drops of Bayberry Oil, 12 drops of Lavender Oil, and 12 drops of Sandalwood Oil to my basic recipe.
Scent essence oils are essential for calming aromatherapy too.
Chill the balm in the fridge till stiff, then the whip the balm with a power mixer.
It looks like fluffy mayonnaise!
Place in small jars, label, and use small amount on hands and arms, rubbing it in.
The Bayberry oil etc. comes through as a very pleasing aroma. My next batch will be eucalyptus and peppermint scented. Enjoy!!!
The Atlantic Puffin (Fratercula arctica) is a beautiful bird. Camera in hand, I photographed them among the craggy rocks and islands.
Copyright 2024 Photo by Ed Hale
Here in Newfoundland, along the Bonavista peninsula, the town of Elliston is home to thousands of Puffins who come to land, mate and raise their young. Like many of you, I am not a Puffin expert but I just love Puffins.
Their satirical eyes and orange beaks are captivatingly reminiscent of parrots and the long beaked Toucan.
Spending most of their lives in the open ocean, Puffin dive, often down to 50 feet or more using their wings like penguins and feed on small fish like sand eels and similar size fish. We human visitors flock to see them each year in spring and summer. They are hunted in parts of the world for food but not here in Newfoundland. Off shore along Elliston below, they like nearby islands where there are few predators to bother them.
Copyright 2024 Photo by Ed Hale
Elliston, by-the-way, is also home of the worlds most numerous root cellars, where historically, locals store their hard earned seasonal vegetable and food larder. Below, immaculately built stone faced root cellar, the door fit snug to keep vermin out.
Copyright 2024 Photo by Ed Hale
I hope to cod fish here soon but regulations restrict cod fishing to weekends and Monday’s to five fish per person. My wife and sister-in-law inherited land and a home on the shores of Newfoundland where we visit with cousins, and perform upkeep on the property. Being on the shore, we get out and cod fish when we can.
Local seiner’s got some capelin (a small very edible fish) and I was gifted some to grill. Years back we were grilling them near midnight, my first capelin ever and initiation was to bite the head off my grilled fish.
Smoked Caplin Tonight
I gutted cleaned and brined them for an hour in a sea salt bath. Then smoked them on my dome charcoal smoker for an hour, I made enough for two more meals to smoke with fishing friends and more beer. It’s a tough job but… someone has to do it. Might as well be me.
Copyright 2024, All Rights Reserved
I did so with a grin and washed it down with cold locally brewed beer made of 20,000 yr old iceberg water. It was fabulous!
I have been using Sous Vide water baths for cooking game meat to a specific internal temperature. Below is the Sous Vide tool to heat water and food to exact temperatures.
For example; my venison can be SV’d to 125F then sear on a grill for perfect rare venison. But now cooking bear meat to medium rare? How is that possible?
Bear meat, like pork has the possibility of containing Trichinella, thus for years, federal guidelines for cooking are at much higher internal temperatures usually 160ºF and higher.
I read an article in Bear Hunting Magazine where the author now eats his black bear meat at 140ºF after using a Sous Vide (time and temperature technique in a water bath) perfected by Federal Government Food Safety Guidelines below to kill parasites like wild game born trichinella. See Table A1 for time and temperature in the website below to kill Trich..
I have not tried the Sous Vide method for Bear meat.
When in doubt cook to at least 160ºF internal temp. like in a stew. I pressure cook my bear for stew.
Note; Steve Rinella of Meateater fame made a serious field cooking mistake in 2011 with Alaskan black bear meat. He cooked it over an outdoor fire but was not sure of its internal temperature. He and his hunt party ate it and came down with Trichinosis infection and all had to take antibiotics. It was no fun!
I don’t know what Steve was thinking but he already knew of the parasite issue?
He continues his bear hunts and eating bear but perhaps learned a very important cooking survival lesson.
If you have no way to accurately measure internal grilled bear meat temperature in the field, don’t eat it.
Many Indigenous people of North America boiled or stewed bear meat. A few tribes roasted it on a spit but boiling long enough to stew and tenderize will kill both bacteria and parasites. See website below.
My wife and I continue our effort in turning our frozen boneless moose parts into vacuum sealed burger, stew meat, steaks and a few roasts.
We began by finding parts to be ground into burger, and found lots of it as you see in our transformed freezer below.
Moose meat has no fat thus we mixed approximately 20 to 25% pork butt in with the burger. Pork butt has pork meat and pork fat to allow burger patties to bind and stick together. Pork is also a key ingredient in making meat balls and pasta sauces.
After around 18 hours of processing we have nearly completed the burger packaging of maybe 130 pounds and 60 pounds of steak and stew meat.
Last night we had moose stroganoff and it was a hit. Meat flavor was excellent with no hint of gamey taste. I prefer steak thin slice 1/4 inch x 2 inches or thinner against the grain for stroganoff as I have made in the past to my families delight.
Most all on-line beef stroganoff recipe’s will work just fine with moose steak, just thin slice it against the grain while raw and partially frozen before you saute it. Just don’t overcook the meat.
Today we cut backstrap butterfly steak, many sirloin steaks,and stew meat.
Note: Some steaks will be made into tips and stews as winter gets here. More to do but it is safe and frozen. We will rearrange the freezers so we have a better inventory. Already we have given some meat to friends and family. Nice!
I must admit that I hunt big game more often than I squirrel hunt. But when I do, i recall my youth and get out my sharp shooter skills with .22 rimfire, it feels good. Years back when my kids were learning to hunt, squirrel was on the menu all the time. A chest shot is fine to take them down but a head shot is better. Accordingly, the head shot is what we strive for, but it doesn’t always happen. Missing a shot at a squirrel is easy to do.
I am fortunate to have recently bagged three grey squirrels and was going to make a stew for my grandkids. But, alas we were having difficulty with family schedules as they live an hour away and are homeschooling.
Skinning a squirrel is a straight forward proposition but the skin takes work to pull away from the meat. Once complete everything else is easy. I use a small knife and sharp small game shears.
I decided to cook all three for my wife and I , besides I thought it was best for my son to take one of his children hunting for their own full experience from field to frying pan.
I separated the legs from the body and halved the body for browning all parts together.
I dusted them with flour and browned the meat in a large skillet with 2 tablespoons of olive oil. Then, on to pressure cook the meat for 14 minutes with 2 cups beef broth or bullion infused water with some salt and pepper, garlic powder, thyme and a bay leaf. It was perfect time, 14 minutes, as the meat was very tender. Some folks debone the meat after cooking. I like it on the bone.
I chopped stew veggies like carrot, celery, onion and potato and pressure cooked those for 7 minutes. Mixing the cooked meat and veggies allowed the flour to help thicken the stew. Below is a small tasty meal.
OMG it tastes like leg or thigh chicken meat and no hint of wild to it. One squirrel makes a meal but I would cook more for leftovers.
Spring is here! Time to get outdoors to camp and have breakfast, lunch and dinner with mother nature. There is nothing like cooking a hearty meal over a wood fire with the right tools and set-up. Below, eggs, beans, sausage and sliced potato up in Pittsburg New Hampshire along Lake Francis.
There is nothing like Peach Cobbler in a Dutch Oven.
In a wilderness setting, a frypan is king and there are coated lightweight frypans and even titanium for less weight if backpacking but if you have the option of a heavier fry pan there is always cast iron which hold heat well.
I grew up visiting grandparents who never knew what air-conditioning was, like in the hot summer, accordingly we cooked over a contained wood fire and played outside till nightfall.
Frying foods in a large cast iron skillet was a great way to cook breakfast, eggs, fried potato, and thick ham slices and a pot of baked beans with salt pork, Put the bread right near the fire and let it toast a bit.
Maybe your like me, I also like onion and pepper and sausage fried with the potato and you can even scramble eggs and add it to the frying mix. In fact that brings me to a cast iron Dutch oven for cooking over a fire.
We had a bbq grill basket with handle too for foods that we can just flip the basket to cook the other side.
Like salmon steaks, Asparagus, sliced zucchini and summer squash, roasted bell pepper and onion. Spray the basket with olive oil to keep food from sticking.
OMG I am already getting hungry. A new easy grill dish I saw recently was baked potato sliced open and then fried on the grill with beans/ chili , salsa and melted yellow cheddar topped with sour cream and flakes of cilantro. Of course a nice cold beer or sparkling spring water to help wash it down!
Meat from a laboratory? Do you trust big business approved by the federal government to provide lab grown meat for you to eat? They say government approval is coming soon. Is that really beef you are eating? Where is our society going? Where is the connection to the natural world? If you are so dependent, I submit you will lose essential survival and leadership skills essentially becoming sheep.
It was COVID that urged many to try hunting! As a hunter, I like to see the animal that makes my meat rich protein diet. Hunting does that! In fact, hunters must understand the relationship of game and its surrounding field and forest, find the animal, make a clean kill, remove the guts, skin it, package it, and refrigerate or freeze the meat for future meals. The fruit of the hunters labor is celebrated when the game is in hand and at the dining table. You are the provider and you have first hand knowledge of the field care of your meat. Below, a wild pig taken with a crossbow.
Chops I cut myself for the table and freezer.
The process of hunting has provided meat for civilization for hundreds of thousands of years and it is family oriented, skill rich, survival rich benefits that nature can provide. Remove the survival instinct to forage and kill for food, and we become sheep, dependent on its master for food and protection.
During two recent episodes we as society were shocked that the grocery stores were closed. First recent episode; Katrina, that storm several years ago, so devastated the landscape that we humans were forced to forage and hunt for meat and have a weapon to protect ourselves and family.
The second event we are living in right now, COVID 19. Remember the meat and pork scare last year? Grocery stores for some meat supplies were bare! Panic meat purchases ensued. I have had such a successful year hunting that I was never really concerned for meat. My freezer was full of lean, organic protein rich game meat.
Making my own ground meat!
Do yourself a favor, learn to hunt, and forage, it is an essential survival tool. Along the way you will learn survival skills and trust in your own abilities.
Decades ago in one of “Outward Bound’s” Colorado ( https://www.cobs.org/)programs, students had to be alone in the woods for three days, called a “solo” and among other things you were given a live chicken. You didn’t have to kill it, but it was there facing you every day. Grass shoots and herb tea for three days or roasted chicken on a spit? Your choice! When your stomach wants food it sort of growls doesn’t it.
When I was 16 years old, I attended the Hurricane Island Outward Bound School (https://www.hiobs.org/) for 28 days, and learned survival skills and more about myself. I “solo’d three days on a small island off the coast of Maine. I did not have a live chicken but had access to mussels and sea urchins and sea weeds such as glasswort, plants bulbs like rose hips, plants like goose tongue, dulse, chicory and wild peas. No it was not manna from heaven but I grew to like it. I forage for wild edibles even today when i am hunting. When I was in Newfoundland a few years ago I had sea urchin eggs and wild peas on the shore. And lots of Codfish!
Some of you are aware that I wrote about dry aging wild game recently in special dry age bags. I used a dry age bag recently for 14 days. I dry aged some moose and venison.
I had intended to dry age some moose and venison steaks for 20 days. Well, the meat darkened and shrank, and shrank. Today, I was thinking of a delicious steak and had to open the dry age bags at day 14. What did I find? I found that there was no odor, and that the surfaces had a hardened cover of dried meat.
Day 1
Day 14
The bag was easily removed. The meat was dry on the outside as you see below
and dark in color.
I used a sharp knife to trim the surface. Below looks like a lot of trim but is very thin shavings. Not a lot of waste.
No mold or odd smells just darker in color. I sandwiched two moose steaks and stacked together and that worked out ok for drying the periphery of the moose meat.
Now for my wife to try it, I Sous Vide a dry aged moose rump steak and venison back strap from this process to a 115 degrees with herbs, salt, pepper and a tablespoon of Worcestershire and olive oil for 1.5 hours and then seared on a hot grill. The center was rare to medium rare. I sliced thin slices for her. She said, flavor was good and tender. I liked flavor, but was not as tender as I had hoped after 14 days of dry aging. The best way to age is with much thicker pieces, like a leg roast, but I only have steaks and back strap. Was it worth the effort? The jury is still testing and hopeful. I did have good luck dry aging without bags for 3 days with moose rump steak. Will try that again! When I use bags again, I will let it age longer.
I have to give a hat tip to Steven Rinella and company of Meateater fame to bring the topic of sous vide up. I am a meateater! You too? Great!
I have a gift for you to put under your Christmas tree if you like to cook and eat meat perfectly done. It is fast and is a no muss, no fuss device. My device is called an Instant Accu Slim Sous Vide, Immersion Circulator with digital touchscreen display below. It is a significantly different way to cook meat! Check on-line to shop and read-up.
This circulator cost is about 79 dollars for my model but you can spend more.
I have briefly read about these devices but for a time, I blew them off, so here I am in the kitchen the other day “without” a sous vide tool, and want to precook my back strap steaks slowly to avoid being overdone which can happen with lean game meat.
So, I cooked some venison backstrap steaks in my vacuum seal-a-meal bag with Worcestershire sauce, salt and pepper and in hot water bath on my stove top and in a pan of water for a short period, like a sous vide but I had t to guess about time and temperature. When I thought the meat was cooked a bit, I pulled the meat out and grilled to sear them at 400F on my outdoor grill. My meat was tender and juicy. A good guess! But I want to do that again with the real equipment so I can cook lots of tender game to precise temperatures. I just bought this model shown above. It is coming via Santa Claus.
Game meat has little fat so overcooking lean venison can make your meat tough. For someone like me who has a freezer full of wild game, I think the investment is worth it. There is another method some call reverse searing where you cook meat slowly in an oven at say 225F then sear at the end like I do with prime rib roasts but that is for a different day.
You know, I enjoyed that dessert so much using a camp fire cast iron Dutch oven that I bought my own and used it yesterday Labor Day Sunday! I did not use charcoal briquettes, I used wood coals from the campfire that had just cooked a bunch of lobsters. See image below.
Open the lid and here is the Peach Cobbler! It was OMG delicious and with a dollop
of vanilla Ice Cream was sooo good!
It was a Labor Day Special Dessert! Not a crumb or peach was left. Note that I had purchased aluminum tray inserts for the oven. Easy cleanup!
In a wilderness setting, a frypan is king and there are coated lightweight frypans and even titanium for less weight if backpacking but if you have the option of a heavier fry pan there is always cast iron which hold heat well.
