Eating Internal Organs

[Deleted Account]

I was reading a Petersen's Hunting issue today, and they were giving recipes for preparing turkey organs, but prefaced them by saying that many people are used to preparing deer organs, primarily the heart and liver.

I have never had either deer heart or liver, though I love beef liver. How many people save back organs for eating?

[wolc123]

The external buck deer organs are good also:

[chrisw]

I never saved a deer heart up until 3-4 years ago when I finally kept one and tried it. Now I keep every single one. Delicious. That's the only organ I care to eat though.

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[Deleted Account]

24 minutes ago, wolc123 said:

The external buck deer organs are good also:

A frat house at the University of Illinois does an annual "Testicle Festival". Unfortunately, Covid-19 has kicked that event in the nards for 2020. 

[turkeyfeathers]

2 minutes ago, Splitear_Leland said:

A frat house at the University of Illinois does an annual "Testicle Festival". Unfortunately, Covid-19 has kicked that event in the nards for 2020. 

That’s quite the hazing event 

[Deleted Account]

1 minute ago, turkeyfeathers said:

That’s quite the hazing event 

Totally open to the public, and quite an event actually. Everyone who I've talked to who have went have said they had a ball.

[Steuben Jerry]

Always save the heart if it's not shot up bad. The liver occasionally, but I like the heart more.

@wolc123 is starting to get me curious on the externals...

[Pygmy]

Venison liver is my favorite liver by far..Noticeably milder than beef liver.  I also like the heart, either parboiled and sliced cold for sandwiches, or sliced, floured and fried in butter...

I never tried the kidneys but I heard that they are good as long as you boil the piss out of them..

Two things I refuse to eat.. Brains and testicles....

[Daveboone]

My wife loves liver and gets all sorts of annoyed if I dont save the deer liver. They absolutey need to be eaten when fresh...that day ideally for best flavor, and the younger the better. When ever I can save the heart I love to pickle them. I have never tried the kidneys.

[helmut in the bush]

This was always a favorite growing up, the Kidneys were the best part, 

https://www.thespruceeats.com/ultimate-steak-and-kidney-pie-recipe-435671

 

And you can keep the sack lunch Bro!!!

[mowin]

Nope.  Can't stand liver.  Never tried the heart. Never saved either one. 

Friend of mine makes liverwurst from ven livers.  Says it's good, but he's a idiot. Lol

[wolc123]

1 hour ago, Daveboone said:

My wife loves liver and gets all sorts of annoyed if I dont save the deer liver. They absolutey need to be eaten when fresh...that day ideally for best flavor, and the younger the better. When ever I can save the heart I love to pickle them. I have never tried the kidneys.

Rigor mortis effects the liver very significantly.   That is why many people think the liver from older deer is too tough to be enjoyable.  If you cook and eat it right away (within a couple hours of the kill), it is possible to get ahead of that process, but that timing rarely works out.   An easier method is to keep the livers from older deer in the fridge for a week or so, prior to freezing.   That will allow time for the rigor mortis to break down and it will be tender when cooked.  

If you freeze the livers, a day or so after the kill, you are locking in the rigor-mortis at about the maximum toughness stage, and they will be very chewy when thawed and cooked.   I left a lot of livers in the gut-pile from 1.5 year and older deer for this reason.  Fortunately, I never abandoned a button-buck liver (the 6-month olds are not affected by the rigor mortis process), and they were always tender and awesome tasting.    

I have only been blessed with button bucks every other season, during the last 36 years and last year was an off year. I saved the liver from the 3.5 year old buck that I center-punched with my crossbow last season, and I placed it in the fridge for week.   I ate about a third of it fresh (it was quite large compared to those from button bucks, which I can easily down in one sitting), and froze the rest.  It was very tender and almost as tasty as that from button bucks.  The other two packages, that were in the freezer, were just as tender and tasty as the part that I ate fresh (after a week in the fridge).   I just ate the last one a couple weeks ago.    

Based on that experience, I am going to keep saving the livers of older deer, especially if they are very cleanly killed like that buck was.   I did not keep the liver from a 3.5 year old doe, that I killed later with my shotgun,  because that was not such a clean kill (It took me three 16 gauge foster slugs to end her suffering).  How cleanly the deer is killed has some effect on the flavor.  

I always save the deer hearts, and my wife pickles them for me each year on Valentines day.   She uses a recipe that my grandmother had for beef heart and tongue (I always liked the tongues better, but they are too small to bother with on deer).  Since I only had two deer hearts last year, she added a couple of beef tongues to the batch.   That was some damn good eating for sure.           

 

 

Edited March 25, 2020 by wolc123

[Marion]

The external buck deer organs are good also:

Looks like an albino Walnut

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[Jeremy K]

Damn barbarians

[Farflung]

I always get the deer heart and usually pickle it. Will take the liver and eat it is it is fluke free (most have flukes around here). Usually grab the turkey liver and heart (either for me or the dogs). 

Weirdest organ meat I've eaten was duck lungs in Vietnam. Thinking back to the  dusty area they were foraging in freaks me out now, but was fine at the time.

[Pygmy]

My apologies to some of the older members  of this forum who have already heard this story...

I was hunting caribou in NWT in 1994, and had killed a bull...My guide was a full blooded Inuit named George Konana..

George was butchering my bull, and I was standing alongside with my hands in my pockets feeling weird, because I was accustomed  to being the one doing the butchering.. This was my first guided hunt..

George cut out the liver and set it aside...I asked him if caribou liver was good to eat...

He cut a slice of the raw liver, and then cut open the stomach..

He  dipped the liver slice into the stomach  and got a big green gob of the contents and then ate the whole mess, and licked his fingers

George looked at me and said " There's too much for me to eat, YOU want some  ?  "

I replied  " ****  you, George ."....

[Deleted Account]

18 minutes ago, Pygmy said:

My apologies to some of the older members  of this forum who have already heard this story...

I was hunting caribou in NWT in 1994, and had killed a bull...My guide was a full blooded Inuit named George Konana..

George was butchering my bull, and I was standing alongside with my hands in my pockets feeling weird, because I was accustomed  to being the one doing the butchering.. This was my first guided hunt..

George cut out the liver and set it aside...I asked him if caribou liver was good to eat...

He cut a slice of the raw liver, and then cut open the stomach..

He  dipped the liver slice into the stomach  and got a big green gob of the contents and then ate the whole mess, and licked his fingers

George looked at me and said " There's too much for me to eat, YOU want some  ?  "

I replied  " ****  you, George ."....

 

 

Edited March 25, 2020 by Splitear_Leland

[Swamp_bucks]

Don't do liver not eating any things testicles.  However heart I've had a couple of times and I like it.  A guy down to work pickles his and it's really good.  Told my wife next year I was going to try cooking one myself.  She about gagged.  My grandma said during the 30s and 40s she used to eat cow tongue all the time.

[Deleted Account]

27 minutes ago, Swamp_bucks said:

Don't do liver not eating any things testicles.  However heart I've had a couple of times and I like it.  A guy down to work pickles his and it's really good.  Told my wife next year I was going to try cooking one myself.  She about gagged.  My grandma said during the 30s and 40s she used to eat cow tongue all the time.

I had thinly sliced cow tongue at a Korean BBQ in NYC one time, it was amazing.

[Swamp_bucks]

15 minutes ago, Splitear_Leland said:

I had thinly sliced cow tongue at a Korean BBQ in NYC one time, it was amazing.

She used to say the same.  She never cooked it for me that I can ever remember.   She made me eat liver once and that was enough for me.  

[BowmanMike]

8 hours ago, Pygmy said:

Venison liver is my favorite liver by far..Noticeably milder than beef liver.  I also like the heart, either parboiled and sliced cold for sandwiches, or sliced, floured and fried in butter...

I never tried the kidneys but I heard that they are good as long as you boil the piss out of them..

Two things I refuse to eat.. Brains and testicles....

how do you cook the liver?

[rachunter]

Plenty of deer liver never tried the heart or tongue but will be from the next deer I get.

If I get a turkey this spring i'm going to Rinella it 

 

[Dinsdale]

Most interesting?

Salted buffalo stomach. Never got below 90* sitting out curing.

The testicals cooked in butter were fantastic appetizer.

 

[rachunter]

8 minutes ago, Dinsdale said:

Most interesting?

Salted buffalo stomach. Never got below 90* sitting out curing.

The testicals cooked in butter were fantastic appetizer.

 

My grandmother used to eat cow stomach,I guess i'd try it. Not sure about the yams.

Did you ever eat any part of an elephant? I always wonder what thay taste like. 

[Dinsdale]

17 minutes ago, rachunter said:

 

Did you ever eat any part of an elephant? I always wonder what thay taste like. 

Coarse grain more like beef chuck; grilled over coals from back strap, trunk, and dried. Trunk is considered the best, and often delivered to most important headman in area. Its good, bit chewy, strong flavor, although it reminds me of woodchuck. I've only had late dry season, never when grass was flush....that effects grass fed beef, I'd guess the same. Like the jerky best.

Those are ele jaw bones in the background of that pic waiting for researcher to do data statistics on age, growth, and take samples for determining quotas for the area.