][1]The 5pm Dining blog tends to focus on culinary news in Scotland or the UK. However, the occasional news story from further a field is sometimes too good to miss.
Which brings us to a recent story about the black bears of New Jersey. Until recently, the 5pm Dining blog was unaware that New Jersey has black bears.
It’s probably ‘cos we’ve watched too many mob shows but we thought that the closest New Jersey got to ursus americanos was the bear-like Tony Soprano.
We were wrong. It seems that the black bear population of New Jersey is flourishing. So much so that the state wildlife department is issuing bear hunters with a bear recipe book every time they register a bear kill.
Tastes like beef
The New York Times quotes Kelcey Burguess, principal biologist for the state’s Division of Fish and Wildlife, as saying, ‘It’s tasty. It tastes like beef. I like cooking the ribs slowly.’
The recipe book includes advice on how to butcher your bear meat and suggests that the meat is eaten, canned or frozen within a week as the flavour becomes stronger with age.
Bear meatloaf
The recipes include bear burgers, bear meatloaf and bear satay on a stick.
We can’t help but feel they have missed a trick by not including some Yogi Bear-themed recipes.
Yogi yakitori and Boo-Boo baby ribs should get the ball rolling.