Eating coyote: crazy idea?

[Poser]

I've never eaten one, but I have gone out hunting them with the intention of doing so. My plan was to make jerky first and take it from there.
A buddy of mine has eaten a few and he says it is a very neutral tasting meat.

 

[Shrek]

i watched that episode.

IF i was gonna shoot a coyote and eat it..that method of cooking wouldnt be my choice for the maiden voyage. i'd use more butter and wine

That and a bottle of wild turkey. Heck , with enough whisky I could eat most anything !

 

[KMD]

Chicken are a most foul and disgusting animal, pun intended.
Pigs root in their own crap and will literally eat anything
Lobsters & crabs are underwater cockroaches, feasting on dead & rotting flesh
Ungulates like male caribou actually drink the urine of the females during the mating season
Some sharks excrete urine as waste through their pores

All kinds of gross stuff to think about, not to mention potential health concerns.
That aside, once ya get over the socio-cultural stereotype of the animal in question, its all just protein...

 

[tstowater]

Never eaten the stuff, but I would be curious what the canning group could come up with as they claim that everything else is better if canned.

BTW, beaver is good. Not going any further than that.

 

[boom]

That and a bottle of wild turkey. Heck , with enough whisky I could eat most anything !

hahah..copy that!

i love smoked foods..just not smoke generated by burning hair.

 

[ftballman125]

hahah..copy that!

i love smoked foods..just not smoke generated by burning hair.

Heh, yeah, I think if I threw basically any furry animal on the grill, hair and all, I probably wouldn't super much like the taste...

 

[Rizzy]

That and a bottle of wild turkey. Heck , with enough whisky I could eat most anything !

Like a Beaver with the fur still on it!

I have shot and trapped coyotes, but never cut a backstrap out of one to try. There was a guy a few years back that shot a wolf and cut the straps out of that and tried it. I've contemplated doing the same when I shoot my wolf

 

[William Hanson (live2hunt)]

BTW, beaver is good. Not going any further than that.

Lmao true that

 

[charvey9]

Bears sting to high heaven, rutting bulls smell like piss. Just sayin, it isn't alll about how something smells when its killed....you're not eating the hide.

 

[CentennialELK]

no. Ain't gonna do it. Ya don't eat coyote. Or ground squirrels. Or rock chucks. Or prairie dogs. No.

exactly...

 

[Coyote Commander]

I've had my hands up inside WAY to many coyotes to ever even think of eating one unless I'm literally starving to death.

Same goes for 'coon (widely eaten down south).

Or muskrat (a delicacy in France).

I had dog in Korea, not my cup of tea.


If you want a good meal from something that's "odd", try beaver. EVERYONE I've fed it to liked it.

 

[Coyote Commander]

If you do decide to eat coyote, get em peeled and gutted fast, they spoil quick.

 

[ftballman125]

Bears sting to high heaven, rutting bulls smell like piss. Just sayin, it isn't alll about how something smells when its killed....you're not eating the hide.

Good point.

 

[Larry Bartlett]

Miggles, interesting question. I like your writing style and imagine your personality clearly, so I'll bite this once:

An analogy might serve us all better...middle east about, well, a long lifetime ago, I was a combat medic and visiting a Bedouin village deep in Iraq. This was a place where Farrell dogs eat whatever they can find, mostly goat carcasses and hedgehogs, or other common fare...scorpions, spiders, hares...pretty much what coyotes eat. Anyway, when visiting the elder Iraqi (Sunni by religion and geographics) at tea time, visitors eat what they are offered les you offend.

After tea a woman in a veil brought a tray of freshly cooked (steeped) meat. We ate it without knowing what it was, and it was a little sweet, a little sour, and little "wild." But not bad. I didn't gag, but I wouldn't ask for it again. Before we left I asked my translator to ask what meat we ate, curiously. He asked the elder and he said something in response. My translator gave a shrug and pointed to their scrawny puppy and said...wild dog. They kill them so they won't hunt their goats, but they eat them because they're hungry."

fast forward about 700 miles closer to Bagdad, Iraq...a different scene but similar setting. This Shiite family served us tea and then some meat and fire cooked bread. Tasted horrible and I gagged without control. The old man laughed and said something to my translator. My guy turned to me and said, "this, too, is Ferrell dog, and they kill them because they eat dead people...you eat them because we served it to you..."

So, my take away on that experience was this: If you eat dog, you must question its normal diet, at least the year leading up to your cuisine. Animal flesh, especially predators, are what they eat. Example, a grizzly or black bear that eats mostly vegetation and the occasional animal is quite tasty, but one that eats mostly salmon because it's available and plentiful, tastes like the raw end of a squirty bunghole.

Good luck with your options.

Love your posts and admire your p/u enthusiasm. Bust it,

larry out

 

[tipsntails7]

Miggles, interesting question. I like your writing style and imagine your personality clearly, so I'll bite this once:

An analogy might serve us all better...middle east about, well, a long lifetime ago, I was a combat medic and visiting a Bedouin village deep in Iraq. This was a place where Farrell dogs eat whatever they can find, mostly goat carcasses and hedgehogs, or other common fare...scorpions, spiders, hares...pretty much what coyotes eat. Anyway, when visiting the elder Iraqi (Sunni by religion and geographics) at tea time, visitors eat what they are offered les you offend.

After tea a woman in a veil brought a tray of freshly cooked (steeped) meat. We ate it without knowing what it was, and it was a little sweet, a little sour, and little "wild." But not bad. I didn't gag, but I wouldn't ask for it again. Before we left I asked my translator to ask what meat we ate, curiously. He asked the elder and he said something in response. My translator gave a shrug and pointed to their scrawny puppy and said...wild dog. They kill them so they won't hunt their goats, but they eat them because they're hungry."

fast forward about 700 miles closer to Bagdad, Iraq...a different scene but similar setting. This Shiite family served us tea and then some meat and fire cooked bread. Tasted horrible and I gagged without control. The old man laughed and said something to my translator. My guy turned to me and said, "this, too, is Ferrell dog, and they kill them because they eat dead people...you eat them because we served it to you..."

So, my take away on that experience was this: If you eat dog, you must question its normal diet, at least the year leading up to your cuisine. Animal flesh, especially predators, are what they eat. Example, a grizzly or black bear that eats mostly vegetation and the occasional animal is quite tasty, but one that eats mostly salmon because it's available and plentiful, tastes like the raw end of a squirty bunghole.

Good luck with your options.

Love your posts and admire your p/u enthusiasm. Bust it,

larry out

great story and good point

 

[miggles]

I'm always amused by people who say 'coyotes are so disgusting, they smell so bad, eat all sorts of things... eww'. I often catch them then later saying 'mmm, I do love me some bacon.' I haven't eaten coyote. But I have eaten pig. And from my reckoning, coyotes are no more disgusting than pigs, probably less so. I doubt coyotes quite taste like bacon though... but I'd give it a shot if given the opportunity.

Hah yes excellent points here. I'm wondering how much of the smell comes from the hide or from other scent glands? As long as its skinned well and quickly and those glands are not disturbed that smell shouldn't necessarily transfer to the meat?

I guess that just leads me to another question... what is it about coyotes that make them smell so darn awful? I don't have any first hand experience with this yet, but it's one of the most common things I've heard as I've been researching coyote hunting.

 

[miggles]

I've never eaten one, but I have gone out hunting them with the intention of doing so. My plan was to make jerky first and take it from there.
A buddy of mine has eaten a few and he says it is a very neutral tasting meat.

Thanks for the input! Definitely report back if you try it out. Jerky was definitely on my mind as an ultimate use for the meat. If I decide to get a coyote I definitely think I'm going to try preparing it multiple ways (jerky, slow cooked with BBQ spices, maybe grilled with some sort of other marinade?) so that I can be sure I give it a fair shot. Promise to report back on my end, too.

 

[Larry Bartlett]

butt glands for one, make the smell "bad". My fat sausage of a dog, Skeeter, smells like the inside of a rancid arse hole most days. While I love him like a brother, if he died I wouldn't dare pressure cook his bones for the fear of getting than stank all over my sleeves...

It's the animal and breed that makes the different taste and textures. Think of goats and sheep...most sheep are edible (except Marco polo), but most goats are tough and taste different than sheep and they eat pretty much the same things. Dogs are dogs, they'll eat the butthole out of a dead goat because it smells delish to them, but I can't say it does to me.

Don't know, Migs, but good luck on your quest girlfriend.

LB, out and final.

 

[miggles]

Miggles, interesting question. I like your writing style and imagine your personality clearly, so I'll bite this once:

An analogy might serve us all better...middle east about, well, a long lifetime ago, I was a combat medic and visiting a Bedouin village deep in Iraq. This was a place where Farrell dogs eat whatever they can find, mostly goat carcasses and hedgehogs, or other common fare...scorpions, spiders, hares...pretty much what coyotes eat. Anyway, when visiting the elder Iraqi (Sunni by religion and geographics) at tea time, visitors eat what they are offered les you offend.

After tea a woman in a veil brought a tray of freshly cooked (steeped) meat. We ate it without knowing what it was, and it was a little sweet, a little sour, and little "wild." But not bad. I didn't gag, but I wouldn't ask for it again. Before we left I asked my translator to ask what meat we ate, curiously. He asked the elder and he said something in response. My translator gave a shrug and pointed to their scrawny puppy and said...wild dog. They kill them so they won't hunt their goats, but they eat them because they're hungry."

fast forward about 700 miles closer to Bagdad, Iraq...a different scene but similar setting. This Shiite family served us tea and then some meat and fire cooked bread. Tasted horrible and I gagged without control. The old man laughed and said something to my translator. My guy turned to me and said, "this, too, is Ferrell dog, and they kill them because they eat dead people...you eat them because we served it to you..."

So, my take away on that experience was this: If you eat dog, you must question its normal diet, at least the year leading up to your cuisine. Animal flesh, especially predators, are what they eat. Example, a grizzly or black bear that eats mostly vegetation and the occasional animal is quite tasty, but one that eats mostly salmon because it's available and plentiful, tastes like the raw end of a squirty bunghole.

Good luck with your options.

Love your posts and admire your p/u enthusiasm. Bust it,

larry out

Very interesting story, Larry, and definitely demonstrative of a seemingly important principle. I feel fairly confident that the coyotes out in the So Cal deserts aren't eating people (at least hopefully!). I'm imagining their diet consists mostly of rabbits, rodents, maybe some berries. The food sources out here do seem rather sparse, but of course that's looking through my eyes, not the eyes of a desert dog. Something for me to look into more, for sure.

Though as you suggest in your next post, species seems to matter a lot as well. Maybe I could feed a coyote the best possible diet for improving meat taste and it would still only taste all right and it still might be a stinky little animal. This point reminds me of anecdotal evidence I came across in my forum reading recently. People generally report bobcats to be more tasty than coyotes -- two animals of fairly similar size with similar range and similar diets. But I guess cats and dogs are more dissimilar than sheep and goats as in your example. Hmm...

Anyway, thanks for your thoughts and kind words, too.

P.S. Love your TAG bags

 

[Larry Bartlett]

Migs, i would love to see a trail cam shot of your pet coyote eating donuts and bagels with raspberry tart...in preparation for "harvest day." Priceless.

By the way, I saw a PBS program recently on the encroachment of Coyotes to urban areas of So Cal. Our sprawl has affected the range quality of wild dogs and cats, so the study showed an increased abundance of "trash" in the guts of their subjects (5 coyotes in that study). The range of these dogs were wider than expected, and they spent much of the time en route between nighttime feeding areas (urban environments) to longer spreads in the dessert reaching farther than they expected to find during daytime periods. The scientists found everything from rubber and plastic to hamburgers and fries to small bells (maybe from house cat collars), etc. in their gut samples. They'd feed them activated charcoal to make them regurgitate their stomachs.

Interesting....

You might have a chance to get an urbanite 'Yote before its over, right?

Later