Because my wife and I like to eat, cook and hunt – in that order – a fair amount of our time is spent experimenting with and reading wild game recipes.

At one time or another, we have cooked and eaten just about every legal critter that has either fur or scales.

Prepared and cooked right, most wild animals are nutritious and tasty.

I have been pleasantly surprised by muskrat pie and frog legs. There are exceptions. Included among my short list of not-so-pleasant experiences with wild game cuisine have been beaver burgers and a turtle soup conjured up by Maine’s legendary outdoor writer, the late Bud Leavitt.

As with most fans of wild meat, the cloven-hooved critters rate tops with us. You just can’t beat deer, moose and elk for flavor and nutrition. We have learned over the years that properly aged and packaged meat is unbeatable. And, as for cooking it, simplicity is the key.

A venison loin seared on a hot buttered iron skillet and served rare cannot be matched. If you ask me, there is not a marinade or a complicated recipe that can ever improve upon the untampered natural flavor of pan-fried venison.

In fact, a venison backstrap from a Maryland whitetail deer properly aged and prepared by my hunting buddy and professional chef Dana Young of Westminster, is a dining experience like no other. He insists that the secret is in the way the meat is aged, and there is no arguing with that kind of success.

Worth arguing about, though, is what I call “The Great Cover-up.”

In this month’s North American Bear magazine, cooking writer Susan Kane is pushing her “Bear Roast with Bourbon Cream Sauce.” Gotta a mouth-watering ring, right?

I’m skeptical. Not counting the 4-pound bear roast, she is listing 17 additional ingredients, not the least of which are rosemary, red wine, bourbon and some maple syrup! Egads, man. Either this gal doesn’t like the taste of bear meat, or she prefers to drink her wild cuisine. Busy recipes like this only serve to perpetuate the erroneous popular notion that bear meat is strong or unpalatable.

It is not.

Our family has so far eaten three different bears. Bear roasts cooked just like any domestic beef roast are tender and tasty.

Far too many wild game recipes rely on the two major culprits in The Great Cover-up: cream of mushroom soup and dry onion soup mix.

I understand the temptation. The stuff is tasty, and you can cover a multitude of cooking sins with this sodium-charged combo. A Great Plains buffalo chip or an old Alton Bog beaver slow-cooked in a crock pot with the soup-onion combo would probably keep a group of hungry hunters coming back for more.

Again, we have found that when it comes to wild game cooking, simplicity is the key. National wild cooking writer John Cartier writes: “Don’t get taken in with what I call Fantasy Cooking.’ That’s the supposedly gourmet meal preparation you see on TV and in cooking magazines. I usually don’t use recipes that call for more than six ingredients because I want to highlight the unique flavor of wild food, not destroy it with ordinary stuff you can buy in markets.”

Cartier also notes that “the notion still persists that game cookery involves sorcery and mysterious processes to get the “wild taste” out. The misconceptions about gamy flavors are slowly but surely being dispelled.”

V. Paul Reynolds is editor of the Northwoods Sporting Journal. He is also a Maine Guide, co-host of a weekly radio program “Maine Outdoors” heard Sundays at 7 p.m. on The Voice of Maine News-Talk Network (WVOM-FM 103.9, WCME-FM 96.7) and former information officer for the Maine Dept. of Fish and Wildlife. His e-mail address is [email protected].