I've never really understood what people say when they say meat is "gamey". To be fair, I've only been hunting a few years and did not grow up eating game meat, so perhaps I just don't have enough experience here. But gaminess isn't a flavor or quality that I have any precise understanding of; if someone says "this meat is gamey", that doesn't tell me a whole lot, apart from "it doesn't take like typical grocery store meat". In contrast, everyone knows what you mean if you say meat is tender, rancid, fatty, etc.
Seems to me that if gaminess means anything specific, it should be some quality that is common to all wild game meat. Hence "gamey". That's so broad a category that it seems unlikely, though. Is there some flavor that is somehow common to wild deer, antelope, ducks, pigs, pheasants, bear, and so on? If there is, I haven't noticed, but again maybe it's a lack of experience.
My guess is that gamey is just sort of a vague term that generally means "it doesn't taste exactly like similar domestically-raised meat." The less a deer tastes like beef, the gamier it is. The less a grouse tastes like chicken, the gamier it is. The less a wild turkey tastes like domestic turkey, the gamier it is. And so on. In other words, gaminess is just divergence of domestic-ness.
Thoughts? Let me know if I'm missing something.
Seems to me that if gaminess means anything specific, it should be some quality that is common to all wild game meat. Hence "gamey". That's so broad a category that it seems unlikely, though. Is there some flavor that is somehow common to wild deer, antelope, ducks, pigs, pheasants, bear, and so on? If there is, I haven't noticed, but again maybe it's a lack of experience.
My guess is that gamey is just sort of a vague term that generally means "it doesn't taste exactly like similar domestically-raised meat." The less a deer tastes like beef, the gamier it is. The less a grouse tastes like chicken, the gamier it is. The less a wild turkey tastes like domestic turkey, the gamier it is. And so on. In other words, gaminess is just divergence of domestic-ness.
Thoughts? Let me know if I'm missing something.