CAN YOU EAT MOUNTAIN LION? DISPELLING ANOTHER MYTH

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CAN YOU EAT MOUNTAIN LION? DISPELLING ANOTHER MYTH


By David Smith

Folks often ask "Can you eat mountain lion?" whenever they see a photo of a lion killed by a hunter. If these hunters are to be trusted, yes, you can indeed eat mountain lion.
Some folks suggest that you never eat mountain lion meat. It tastes bad, they say. I've never eaten it myself, but I've always had the desire to give it a try. I guess I am just very skeptical of people who declare that some meat is out of bounds. I don't buy it.

Sure, some meat might have an off-putting flavor, but I've always felt that was peculiar to a particular animal and that blanket statements across the species were unwarranted. That's been my experience anyway, and I've eaten a lot of different critters.

Casey Lavere, from HUSH, and his hunting buddy and, I think, younger brother Logan are hunting mountain lions with J.T. Robbins in Grand Junction, Colorado. The video in this short series chronicles the six-day hunt the guys take with Allout Outfitters.

Casey got himself a lion in yesterday's video, and today, he and Logan are going to cook it up and eat it. Let's see what they have to say about eating mountain lion.



They've got a mountain lion backstrap. It looks like pork. Light in color and very lean.

Casey rubs down his chunk of lion with olive oil and then seasons it with salt, pepper and a spice mix. He then wraps three pieces of bacon around the meat, mostly for purposes of helping to keep it moist, because it's so lean. He finally wraps it in foil, making a tight little package.

Logan mixed green onions with garlic butter and poured that over and into his piece of mountain lion, which he had scored in several places. Then he, too, placed bacon on the meat and covered that again with his onion/garlic butter mixture. He also wrapped his meat in foil.

They both placed their foil packages on the grill.

When they opened up the packages and dug in, well, you can tell that Casey was very enthusiastic.

"This is crazy," he says. "Honestly. If I was to give you a piece of this, and you didn't know what it was, you'd think it was some really good, low fat pork. Without a doubt. Amazing."

Yeah, you can definitely eat mountain lion.

[Rebel SS]

Huh! Kitty pot roast...! You'd think it would be tough and stringy.... 

[LPS]

My brother is quite a predator hunter and trapper.  He made bobcat for us once and it wasn't too bad.  He cut it in 1" chunks and cooked it in a white sauce.  We ate it as an hours douvre. 

[Rebel SS]

You can eat anything if ya put it in enough sauce. Or deep fry it. Lotsa proof of that. 

[glenn57]

My brother is quite a predator hunter and trapper.  He made bobcat for us once and it wasn't too bad.  He cut it in 1" chunks and cooked it in a white sauce.  We ate it as an hours douvre.

so, LPS, how deep into HH was that??????????????

[Steve-o]

I reckon you could toss it in an instantPot with a pack of Lipton Onion Soup and make it melt in your mouth.

[Rebel SS]

I'd chunk it up, beer batter it and toss it in the deep fryer. Cat puffs.

[LPS]

My brother is quite a predator hunter and trapper.  He made bobcat for us once and it wasn't too bad.  He cut it in 1" chunks and cooked it in a white sauce.  We ate it as an hours douvre.

so, LPS, how deep into HH was that??????????????

Oh ya it was HH.  It was one of those "hey guess what this is" things. 

[Dotch]

Think how excited they'd be if you showed up at the back door of a Chinese restaurant with something like that! 

[delcecchi]

I recall hearing about the trappers and mountain men back in the day.   They were said to like mountain lion meat.    Never had any myself.