CURED MEATS

One of the pleasures associated with deer hunting is the opportunity to enjoy some great-tasting table fare from your harvested venison. Boneless loin chops and tenderloins are among the best examples, but the remaining parts of the deer carcass can be used for a tasty variety of cured meats like smoked sausage, snack sticks, jerky, bologna and summer sausage, to name just a few. These products, with all the flavor varieties of each one, offer an almost unlimited range of culinary experiences. Fresh (uncured) sausage like breakfast sausage and bratwurst are also good choices for your venison, but cured meats have a major advantage: Nitrite, which is the ingredient responsible for cured meat properties, is a highly effective preservative and, consequently, cured meats have a much longer refrigerated shelf life than uncured products. Nitrite, in combination with salt, also inhibits most of the pathogenic bacteria that are likely to be present, and this provides improved product safety as well.

Local meat-processing plants typically have a long list of products that they can make with venison and, with a reputable processor, this is an easy and foolproof way to do it. However, more and