Bear Steak Anyone?

The New Jersey Division of Fish and Wildlife notes that the current bear census numbers almost 3,500 in 2010. Black bear have been spotted in all 21 counties in sufficient numbers to support a hunt. As a result, the Division of Fish and Wildlife are going to have a bear season this upcoming December. Pregant sows start denning in October or November so active animals in December will likely be boars.

New Jersey has the most people per square mile in the United States. The resulting demand for agriculture and building development took wildlife habitat and there was just not enough room for bear who can range as much as forty miles. Bear hunting was suspended in 1971, research commenced to bring back their numbers, and they became a protected species.

I had mixed feelings about the announcement of this current hunting opportunity. At this point I do not know if a lottery for permits is involved, but there is a wisp of memory that supports hunting.

Years ago, I was visiting my girl friend who lived on a farm at the foot of one of the Kittatiny Mountains. We sat at the kitchen table playing with the farm dogs and enjoying the warmth from the wood stove. Her mom had a platter of steaks and slid them into the hot cast iron skillet. As they spit and sizzled she invited me to stay for lunch. The smell from the frying meat was too strong for beef. We had milked the goats and they seemed to be all accounted for...so what was in the pan?

It was bear.

Her brother and father went up the mountain looking for deer and happened on the bear and you ate game if you shot it.

Hunting was a privilege in those days and a sport in the tradition of our ancestors. My mom and dad even had matching shotguns with custom fitted stocks. New Jersey does not permit rifle hunting so they had invested in custom shotguns. Everyone in our family participated. To this day I can clean fish, skin and butcher anything for the pot, from squirrel to venison. Bear meat in the frying pan didn't seem unusual.

Flash forward to 2010. I was talking to my daughter just last week and she told me a story that I want to share with you.

Earlier this month, she was enjoying a day at the shore when her cell phone rang. Her next door neighbor was on the phone, so agitated that my daughter said she could hear her gasping for breath and her heart pounding right over the phone.

The neighbor was calling from my daughter's house to report a home invasion by a black bear sow and two cubs. From from her kitchen window's line of sight overlooking my daughter's house and driveway, she could everything the bear did to get into the house.

The sow and cubs were neighborhood visitors since March. At first they were neighborhood darlings, cute as the dickens. Everyone took pains not to feed birds, keep garbage in bearproof cans, not to leave food in cars, and keep pets inside. As the cubs grew, the mother bear taught them everything she knew...and that included the finer points of "Breaking and Entering". "B&E" is the common term that residents in the know use when reporting an incident to the DFW.

This time was heart-stopping.

The sow approached the garage and stopped at the screen window next to the first garage door. Like a careful handyman, she stood up on her hind legs, put a paw on each side of the window, and lifted the screen off. She pivoted and put it down meticulously. Then she went back to the window and climbed in.

As the bear's furry butt disappeared into my daughter's house, the neighbor rushed over to stop the ransacking. She entered through the upper level of the house and then ran down the steps to the ground floor garage area to confront the bear.

As she opened the inside door to the garage, she yelled and screeched at the top of her lungs. She could reach the automatic garage door opener without actually going into the garage, which gave her a degree of protection, and began beating her cane on anything and everything that would make noise.

I don't know if she actually hit the bear, but she reported later that there was a surreal aspect to the whole scenario. She looked out past Momma Bear at the cubs on the macadam driveway. The agitated cubs were going from one side of the driveway to the other, each one on a side, crossing and making diagonals with each other like they were in a maypole dance. In spite of years of observation, she could not recall seeing this behavior before.

The first phone call was to 911 to make the emergency bear report and then the call to my daughter, hitherto enjoying a day at the ocean. Eventually the Department of Fish and Wildlife would decide on a procedure to deal with the obviously too experienced bear.

My daughter tells me that this year alone, local townships recorded four bear hit by cars and several more that had to be trapped and relocated. This sow had been reported previously so the DFW set out to trap her. The foot-note here is that she was captured and probably was euthanized as a repeat offender. Those B & E abilities were evidence of practice and are not tolerated by authorities who try to maintain that fine balance between civilians and the bear population.

It is terrific that there is enough habitat reclaimed in New Jersey for the black bear to have made a comeback. This means that our state can be proud of efforts to reclaim a species and that contributes to the ecology and spirit of our state.

I have been looking through my grandmother's cookbooks and just want to caution anyone who bags a bear and would like to eat it. A bear killed in December is likely to have quite a bit of fat. Trim the meat of fat as soon as possible because bear fat turns rancid. This is something that marinating the meat will not cover. The gamey aspect is not a bad thing, and pot roast and braising will tenderize an animal that might have been angry when shot, but that bear fat is so famous that Indians used to use it for conditioning their skin. Present day tastes will most likely not appreciate that very characteristic rancid odiferous part of the meat. On the other hand, do not let that stop you from cooking and enjoying bear meat.

Here is a recipe for bear pot roast:

Cut the meat into manageable chunks. Toss in a plastic bag with enough flour to coat lightly. Brown in a Dutch oven in chicken fat, lard, or a good vegetable oil until seared on all sides. Take the meat out to a platter while you deglaze the pot with one cup beer or red wine, then replace the meat and add enough broth (vegetable, chicken or beef) to cover. Sprinkle with a packet of Lipton onion soup mix, a splash of ketchup, a bay leaf or two (this is because the bear grew up with mountain laurel, bay leaf is a laurel, plus I think it is compatible) some juniper berries if available, and black pepper. Simmer for a couple of hours and then add salt to taste. Add more ketchup and beer if you prefer at the end of cooking time. Top off with dumplings cooked in the stew for a real campfire meal. You can add vegetables like carrots, parsnips, potatoes to the pot but I prefer to cook the meat for a long time and they don't hold up.

A grown bear can reach over four hundred pounds. That is a lot of meat to waste. If you do not want to stuff your bear, think about giving the meat away. It is awesome to think of the culinary potential.

Bears rock.