Bear Fat

An interesting story about a bear that hunter and executive chef Randy King got. It is one of the first bears I've seen in the spring that ever still had actual marbling in it. Bears go to bed very, very fat. And when they get up in the spring, they usually pretty lean this. This bear had a couple of inches of rump fat on it. We took it and we rendered that down. And basically you make Crisco, more like a clean cooking oil out of it. We rendered off this. We only used about half of it. We still got a couple quarts worth of bear fat off a spring bear, which is amazing. He was a big fat bear. It was great to get him. Explain a little bit more about the rendering of the oil. What's the purpose behind that? Do you use the oil to cook the bear meat? Used to be Reader's Digest, better homes and gardens and all those things. They would actually recommend Bear fat as the best fat you could possibly use to make biscuits and to make pie crusts. So it was recommended. And I remember I was 18 years old, living in a small town in Idaho, and this gal came in and she commented on my pie. Could you use bear fat at this restaurant? I was like, I don't know that that's legal. And I thought she was kind of going maybe a little senile or something. But really what it is, is it's got this unique structure. It is pure white, it is odorless and basically flavorless, but it's got this unique quality to it kind of lightens up a bunch of the other oils. So what you do to get bear fat is you just take it and slowly, slowly simmer the pieces of bear with it. A recipe and a revelation. I had no idea how any of that worked, but now I do.