Try as I might, I can't get the word “innappropriate” out of my head. Normally, I hate the word “innappropriate” - I'm a bit of a believer in that things are either wrong, or they're not wrong. Sometimes, though, there's just no other word that properly describes a particular conundrum.
In this case, I'm up against the wall, so to speak. As a writer that enjoys my own version of humour - and yes, I realize I'm often the only one that gets the joke - and the occasional pun and double entendre, I enjoy wordplay; as an employee of a newspaper in what seems to generally be a politically liberal but morally conservative town, I need to remember my audience, and keep my humour in check.
So, what to do when your subject is a dinner which included cougar, beaver and bear on the menu? Because I've been biting my tongue so hard you could just about add it to the menu of "food Jon has eaten for the first time in the last 2 weeks."
I guess it would probably just be best if I gave up on (probably offensive to the easily offended) jokes and moved on to the subject at hand – that being the fish and wild game banquet held at the Bulkley Valley Rod and Gun Club late last month.
Anyone reading this site knows that I've been on a mission to experience as many distinctly northern activities as I can. What better way to do that than to check out a dinner featuring all sorts of tasty meat dishes, made up of the moving parts of the nature I moved here to enjoy?
I think the latest internet-spawned term for my regular diet classifies me as an opportunitarian – I'll eat what's available (and all those cougar and beaver jokes struggle to break free...). At home, that means mostly veggies and fish, and a few things as equally foreign to hunters as lynx was to me, like tofu, tvp and tempeh. During barbeque season, add sausage and subtract the soy products. At restaurants, I'll usually have something involving beef or pork, and I've been known to inflict serious damage on a serving of bacon.
So if I'm going to a game dinner, of course I'm going to try it all. Plus seconds.
Generally I consider the origin and ingredients of my food to be the two most important factors of what I'm eating. Anything with chemicals I can't pronounce, I'll tend to avoid. I love to cook, so I'm more of a basic ingredient shopper anyway. Which is a roundabout way of saying, I don't have any dietary issues with wild game; in fact, I think it's probably quite a bit better for me than the occasional steak or pork chop that I'll eat when I'm at a restaurant.
Besides, I've long been of the opinion - both before and after half a dozen years of vegetarianism - that if you can't face up to the reality of an animal being killed in order for you to eat, you probably shouldn't be eating that animal. Dining on caribou served to me by the dude that shot, cleaned and cooked it is only one small step away from doing the dirty work myself. Which is a roundabout way of saying, I think wild game is probably a more ethically sound food choice than, say, the average commercially raised side of beef, or farmed salmon.
But on to the pressing question - what does the tofu-eating guy think of dishes like venison lasagna, cougar with gravy, moose stew or a big slab of caribou? Without a doubt, moose, deer and caribou all make very tasty dishes, especially under the watchful eye of Larry Hartwell and his crew in the kitchen. As for the lynx, cougar and beaver, they were all a bit dry, even with the sauce. (My tongue is bleeding profusely from all the biting - I'll be lucky if I can say my name aloud, never mind recite a lewd joke by this time tomorrow).
Anyway, as it turns out, I enjoy eating wild animals. So maybe I will do okay with northern life, after all.
Who knows, in a few years, maybe I'll actually head out in the fall and fill up my freezer. All I have to do first is get a gun. And a license for it. And take a firearms safety course. And learn how to shoot a gun. And get a few weeks off work. And learn how to hunt. And where to hunt. Then there's that whole field dressing process...
Okay, on second thought, maybe I'll just keep going to the game dinner every year.
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