Many things in life taste like chicken. Bear meat is not one of them.

It is a deep-red gamey, pork-like delicacy that is best when marinated — for a long time — or ground into seasoned sausage, or even sliced into traditional cuts like sirloins, roasts and chop meat.

It’s best when it’s grilled or roasted, and it’s pretty tasty in a stew.

"Bear meat is great cuisine, if done right," said Steve Pappas, the owner of Northern Big Game Butcher Service in Vernon.

With a record number of bear being culled during this year's hunt, the first in five years, area butchers are being inundated with the hunters' quarry. Although many are happy to have the additional work, butchers say they're not big fans of preparing the harvest from this year's hunt because the meat is so greasy.



Joe Minorics, a butcher with 57 West Deer Processing in Phillipsburg, said he can only truly be "bribed" to take time away from making venison to cut up a bear.

"It’s a nasty creature," Minorics said of the bear he is now butchering for local hunters. "They’re greasy, and they’re slimy ... It’s so greasy, I don’t want any of it in my deer meat... It’s a trophy animal."

Game Butchers, of Clinton Township, a family-run operation that specializes in processing hundreds of deer each season, is taking in a few select bears to butcher.

On Tuesday afternoon, as taxidermist David Tuttle prepared three bears outside, butchers J.B. Person and Phil Hayden began carving up a 200-pound bear shot near Rockaway on Monday.

First, the skinned bear was sawed into thirds. Choice slices of tenderloin and backstrap were separated from the middle section, which was further carved into smaller bits for bacon and spareribs.

His hindquarters was sliced into roasts — with individual cuts like sirloin, top-round and bottom-round. The top half with its forepaws was eventually sliced into pieces of the bear’s muscular, tougher meat — which would then be combined with pork fat for flavor, and stuffed in the grinder for sausages.

But even as he sliced, Hayden admitted he didn’t like the quality of the meat.

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"I can’t stand it — I don’t even like cutting it," he said.

Steve Pappas, the owner of Northern Big Game Butcher Service in Vernon, said the deep-red meat is "extremely gamey," but said marinating it for a long time makes it a treat that he’s preparing as roasts, steaks and chop meat.

"Bear meat is great cuisine, if done right," Pappas said.

Those who find bear an agreeable meal agree, but they also point out that the meat tastes different, depending on the animal’s eating habits.

"The meat is a lot different if they’re eating out of a Dumpster," said Pappas.

"You are what you eat," said Person, as he sliced away the bear’s thick layer of torso fat.

Hunters, who turned out in record numbers on Monday, said they planned to eat their kill.

"We wouldn’t shoot them if we wouldn’t eat them," said Ed Robillard, who helped haul to a weighing station a 651-pound bear that his mother, Joan Robillard, shot. "Sure I’m going to mount it – I’m going to eat it, too.