Monday, October 29, 2007

A Very BEARY Experiance

Well, I finally did it. I ate a polar bear, well not the whole thing. I got a phone call this evening that one of our friends uncles had shot a bear and did we want to try it? First question: was it cooked, why yes it was. Ok I'll be right over!
It's a pretty fascinating story actually, I guess the uncle was out with a few other guys on a fishing trip. They had noticed the bear stalking them for 4 days and decided to be on the safe side that one of them would stay awake at all times. They set up a string around the tent area tied to gas cans, so if the bear got close it would make some noise. On the night it's the uncles turn to stay up, he hears a noise come from the gas can rig. He then puts his ear up to the tent and hears the heavy breath of the bear. When he is certain that it is the bear, he wakes everyone in the tent and proceeds to run out of the tent and shoots the bear. The details between that and being on my fork are unimportant. It's here and now I am tasting it. It looks like beef, it cuts like beef....but it AIN'T beef! It has a flavor that I can't quite describe. It almost tastes musty to me. Our friend says it's a very rich flavor and I have to agree, however I am not fond of it. It's almost a musty fish flavor. Anyways I only ate it so that I can go down south and freak people out.
On that topic Aleks and I got onto a conversation about what meats I won't eat, being dog, cat and whale. I said I would try everything up here, but not whale. Why not whale Jen? Because I want to free Willy, not stuff him in my belly. I guess I have some strange feeling that they are pretty intelligent and I would feel really upset about consuming them. Plus I would never be able to go back to marine land.

4 comments:

Rob, Tina and the boys said...

That's cool. I would do the same thing, try it just to say that I did. Musty taste? Don't know if I could get around that. Did Aleks try it?

Kennie said...

Polar bear eh? Haven't had a chance to try it yet.. but they did try to convince me to try raw seal the other day ... can we say uh... no thanks? As you Jen, I do prefer my edible meat cooked. Yet, I do have to admit, raw caribou (frozen) wasn't that bad.

jen said...

Kennie,
Raw seal isn't actually too bad, it's not good for munching as a snack, but try it just so you can gross people out down south. Just stay away from raw walrus, we are talking worm town!

Tina,
Yeah Aleks ate more then I did. He actually like it.

Aleks said...

I wouldn't say I like it, though I did enjoy the novelty of the flavor.

It was like beef in texture, but fishy in flavor. Imagine a beef stew where you marinated the beef cubes in fish oil :-)