I’ve eaten almost every member of the deer family native to NA. I may be the odd man out but to me , for the most part, they all taste like deer. I may just not have a sophisticated enough pallet because with few exceptions I view fish the same way, white flaky fish fried in oil with cornmeal coating tastes like white fish fried in oil to me.
I think much of the time nostalgia plays a bigger part than actual meat quality. I mean who’s not going to fondly recall how good their Dalls sheep tenderloin was when they had it for supper after they trudged back to camp a couple hours past dark. My dad, a friend, and I once fried and ate about 16” of grizzly bear backstrap after finding our way to camp in the fog. We all 3 remember that and talk about it often, but I’d bet it wouldn’t have been as good at the house when we weren’t wet and tired.
Around here it’s elk, most guys have never shot an elk around here but may have eaten some a friend gave them. Or maybe they’ve shot one on their personal once in a lifetime hunt, of course it’s the finest meat they’ve ever eaten. I hear this regularly from people who wouldn’t think of eating a local whitetail deer that’s been eating green wheat and living the good life.
Like I said, maybe I’m the weird one but I find about all big game in NA pretty good table fare. Depending of course on the individual animal and the way it was taken care of.
We usually have several folks getting many of them exactly right...