Cooking and eating bear

Executive chef Randy King went on a springtime bear hunt and was successful. and I had a question for Randy. Do you actually eat the bear meat? Oh, yes, 100 percent. Give me one of these recipes for cooking bear. Sure. So the recipe that we used for cooking this bear is we are actually making hams. So Daniel Boone was the famous explorer. He was most happy when he was hunting meat and hunting bears for meat. Bears are one of the best meat sources out there. Now, they've got a bad reputation as being these greasy things and whatnot, but they are really a delicious thing to eat. So they are the most beef tasting of all of the critters that's allowed to go hunting. So the recipe that we did, we made a bunch of hams. So we take a break. We make a brine of salt water, some sugar, a little bit of maple syrup, and some pickling spice, some bay leaves and then some oranges. And we make a bowl and we're going to let the bear soak in the brine for about 10 days. Then we are going to smoke the bear until it reaches an internal temperature of about one hundred and fifty degrees. And the reason that we're going to 150 degrees is just in case of any weird food borne illnesses or any weird bacteria living inside the bear. There shouldn't be. But just in case there is, we want to get it to that kill temperature. So we're going to smoke that. So it's going to sit in the brine and then when you cut it, it's going to taste honestly like a good high quality country ham is what we're going for. So that's the recipe we're doing. And I do have a ham recipe on my website, chefrandyking.com that should be able to help you make whatever you need to go there. So many people say bear isn’t good to eat. Take his suggestion, chefrandyking.com.