Episode 23 Deer & Venison – What a Difference a Flint Makes

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Listen to "023 Deer and Venison - What a Difference a Flint Makes" on Spreaker.


Link to the Episode:

Episode 23 Deer & Venison – What a Difference a Flint Makes

When the first colonists arrived, they were startled to find deer just there.  Many of them had likely never seen a deer that wasn't painted into a coat of arms.  


And if they had seen a deer - 

it was a roe deer  


or a fallow deer. 

(I can never get over those antlers)

The white tail of the pre-colonial east coast 

(they don't care about your fences)

wandering up to and around their struggling gardens must have looked like a cross between giant marauders and a tempting dinner just out of reach.

That is - until the flint-lock arrived 

my photos from the Betsey Ross house in Philly

Photos of an 18thC flintlock - with ball, powder and
assembled cartridge.
At the Betsey Ross house in Philadelphia
Her main job was Upholsterer. Turns out one of her side gigs -
besides sewing flags, was making lead balls for the army.

and made the frustrating matchlock an olde tymes antique.

And you bet your bippy - every last bit of those deer were consumed.  The tough lean, from shoulder to shank - along with the prime belly, chops and loin.  And the prize: the plucks or  the umbles 

thymus, lungs, pancreas, stomachs (there are 4 parts),
kidneys, liver, heart.
Photo from Lions & Lillies with a good discussion on the 
noble attitude to offals


were the fatty riches no mere city folk or peasant normally ever saw back in England.

But the colonists went predictably crazy like toddlers at a ball pit full of candy and did not manage the riches of the new world deer well.  Between hunting them for meat and buckskin madness, they started denuding the wild of deer with alacrity.

Related Media:

Dray, Philip. The Fair Chase. NY; Basic Books, 2018

Booth, Sally Smith. Hung Strung & Potted/ NY; Clarkson N. Potter, 1971

Kraig, Bruce. A Rich and Fertile Land. London; Reaktion Books Ltd., 2017


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