Some bear recipes and looks like proper cooking techniques.

 

Don't know how true this is, but it would be better to be safe than sorry:

 

Keep in mind that about 5% of black bears have parasites in their muscle tissue and when these worms are ingested by humans they cause severe, sometimes fatal, illness called trychinosis. Even when not fatal this illness causes permanent damage to heart, kidneys and muscles – essentially renders you disabled for life. Illness starts with flu-like symptoms and muscle pains, later kidney or heart failure might follow. Less severe cases (depending of number of worms ingested and general health of affected person) resolve in about 6 months – THERE IS NO CURE!!!! Convalescents will have for life arthritis-like pains and disability – or permanent kidney/heart damage with all the nasty consequences. THERE IS ONLY ONE SAFE WAY TO COOK BEAR MEAT – COOK IT UNTIL IS FALL-OFF-THE BONE TENDER !! No freezing, no marinating, no smoking would make it safe except long and sufficient cooking. So forget those rare steaks, sausages and anything other than fork-tender meat if you want to live normal life span.

 

When I cook bear meat, I boil it in broth in pressure cooker until almost tender and marinade for flavor after – and finish my dish until –fall-of-the bone in oven or barbecue. It is always lean, flavorful, never dry and most of all – 100% SAFE!!!!

 

http://www.bowhunting.net/susieq/bear.html

good info..

Great topic. One of my hesitations about bear hunting is what to do with the meat. I don't want to have an insane amount of dog food in the freezer and have long term health issues. 5% is pretty high. Imagine if some told you 1 out of 20 fish will give you live long health problems...kinda like eating blowfish.

 

I understand like everything, us included, that diet is going to dictate the taste and quality of the meat. So if you have a bruin whose sole food source is the dumpster, it would stand to reason the foul taste. The other consideration was why Brown / Kodiak bears in Alaska tasted bad. A big chunk of their diet consisted of meat and fish. I tried brown bear on several occasions when I was stationed up there, and other than a heavily seasoned stew, I didn't like it.