Do you take the heart and liver??

F

falloutwest

Active Member
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Right now there is a cute little discussion going on in the Elk forum about the proper way to field dress an elk. Within that discussion I was reminded of an old argument I had with a buddy about how many hunters actually take an animals heart and liver. His argument, less than 10%. My response, no way, as me and my family had always taken the heart and liver and I love breaded and fried heart. I always thought everyone took them out but it seems many don't. So I was wondering, how many of you pack em and how many leave em??
 
On elk and deer I take the heart and liver. My family enjoys breaded fried heart and the liver. My family does not care for beef liver, but enjoy fried elk & deer liver with onions. Seems to have far better flavor then beef liver.
On speed goats, I leave it behind.

RELH
 
I think it's the Montana game regs that says it best " the heart and liver are not considered edible"
 
>I think it's the Montana game
>regs that says it best
>" the heart and liver
>are not considered edible"

Words to live by!

PRO


Define, develop, and sustain BOTH trophy and opportunity hunts throughout the state of Utah.
 
i have been following the cute discussion in the elk forum, we have some "self ritious" folks here dont we??? I take the heart on elk and deer. I leave the liver, for me its on the wrong side of the diaphram, and the cattle have flukes so i dont trust a "wild" liver.
 
Always the heart if it is in one piece. I will take the liver if it looks good and doesn't have any fluke in it. I personally don't like liver, but many old folks,friends, and neighbors love it. The heart if cooked properly is very good. To hear people say "I aint eat'n guts," seems odd to me.
 
Where in a deer would i find these mentioned items?
Actually for reals, they stay with the guts!
477ae34e5b284072.jpg
 
I almost always take the liver. My dad loves it. He once shot a porcupine and cooked up the liver. Porcupine liver and eggs for breakfast. I even tried it. He's 84 now, and still my hero.

Eel
 
No offense hntbambi. I am 39 and when I was taught to hunt by a friends family you always took the heart and liver. The family ran about 1000 head of sheep and about 200 head of cattle. It wasn't like we were short of meat. It was considered a waste not to,respectfully.JB
 
I ate elk heart Saturday night from Saturday's cow hunt!! If I am not too far in the backcountry, I try to salvage both. Good eats.
 
If I'm close to the truck and gut em I take em, If I have to pack em out and go gutless they stay behind.
 
My family has always taken the heart and liver. The heart is my favorite part of an deer or elk. I never acquired the taste for liver, I can't stand the texture and taste. I have another generation continuing the tradition, my 6yr old and I shared the deer heart I was lucky enough to get this year.


Slide
 
I enjoy one meal a year of DEER heart and liver with onions. Elk heart and liver just don't do it for me. Only the deer.
 
I give them to an indian who lives in McCloud hes just to old and crippled up!
been doing it for 10 years...
it really lights him up and he onlys has daughters who don't hunt much!
I also like a fresh liver and heart w/gravy!
deer only never ate elk/antelope liv/heart!
rm
 
If the kill is close to my rig, i'll take em both home with me. The heart, sliced thin, egged, and spicy floured, cooked in bacon grease along side a few eggs over easy, ranks very high as my favorite meal the morning after a succesful hunt.

I can usually make someone happy by the gift of a fresh deer liver. Not for me, i don't care how it's cooked, it still tastes like liver...blah! About half the time, the liver gets left for the buzzards.

A friend recently gave me the heart of a Buff he bought for the freezer. Great stuff it was, and lots of it!!
 
Take it from somebody in the medical profession, don't eat the liver!!!!! It's the bodies "oil filter". Every poison that your body processes is filtered through the liver. If you look at one under a microscope it looks like a giant sponge. That's why it has the texture it has.

I guess that answers the question on the liver...and I hope the heart is in a million pieces!!!!

It's always an adventure!!!
www.awholelottabull.com
 
If it is not too far to pack, I always keep both. My mother has a way she cooks the heart, grinds it up and makes a delicious sandwich spread. Both are excellent eating.
 
..........I guess it comes back to the same old thing .....we all have different tastes. I grew up on a cattle operation and even though my family has always hunted deer, I despise venison. Will NOT eat it. Except for the liver.

If I had a way to do it, I would shoot a deer and take the liver and then let the deer go. For me, deer liver is the only part I DON'T turn into jerkey, then I give all that away.

Elk liver is even better.....but I like elk steaks, roasts and burger.

From my experience, the 10% figure is real close.
 
Funny the disdain for heart and liver, probably posting as they are eating a hot dog or sausage. haha

I really like the heart and enjoyed liver before the filter thought set in 10 years ago. I will take a clean heart if I am close to home and the liver goes to a neighbor. Still much easier to get them out after going gutless hahahaha.

-------------------------
www.sagebasin.com
-------------------------
 
LAST EDITED ON Jan-29-08 AT 12:25PM (MST)[p]I will always take the Heart and Liver if I can. My Grandfather LOVES both of them. As he took me on my first deer hunt at age 2 and I have never missed another opening in the last 32 years, I feel that it is because of him that I am still out hunting. I bring both to him because he is no longer able to get out and even be in camp but me bringing him the liver, he says, is like still being out there in the hills with me!

When I killed my first deer in Colorado though the guys over there said it was tradition to take a bloody bite out of a still warm and shaking liver.........I did it.......but now hunt with different guys when I go to Colorado!!! haha
 
One hunting partner sometimes wants the elk heart; otherwise they both stay on the ground along with the kidneys, tounge, brain, and other things that are sometimes consumed (by others, not by me) out of beef.

Mark
 
I used to always try to get the heart and liver for my uncle. He is the only one I have ever known that eats that junk. His doctor told him to not eat them anymore. He has diabetes and there is something in both of them that are not good for him.

Myself, I have never had any desire to eat either one. Just seems nasty to me.

2pointer
 
I generally don't take either. I took the heart once and cooked it. It wasn't offensive, but it wasn't memorable. I would like to know some good recipes for both deer heart and deer liver. If someone has good recipes, how about sending them to me in a PM. I'm probably not going to revisit this thread in the future. I would take the trouble to keep these if I had good recipes.

Generally I like to use as much of the deer as I can. I cut the meat off the outside of the ribs and keep for stew and terrines/pates (sort of a seasoned meat pie mixed with pork fat and processed finely, baked, and served cold). I keep some of the bones for making broth (plenty of meat still attached to twists and turns of the bones, or the meat such as hocks too full of sinews to keep as meat). I throw away the hide but if I had a procedure for handling the hide I would probably try to save it too. I have a deer skin jacket from W. B. Place in Wisconsin, and they let you accumulate deer skins in a "hide bank." After you have accumulated enough skins, you can order a coat or other products at about 33% of the cost of a hideless order. All you have to do is heavily salt the hide and roll it up properly and ship. I may try to do that in the future. The more of the deer I save and the less I throw in the garbage the better I feel about it.
 
Just the thought of eating the heart and liver used to make me sick. Like a lot of you guys I figured that was just part of the gut pile, not something you should be eating! Well a few years ago my grandma asked me what I do with the heart and liver from my deer. When I told her I just leave it she was shocked! She said my grandpa and my dad (both died when I was young) used to love to eat them and she did too! I kept the next heart and liver and she cooked them up for me. The liver tasted just like liver and I can honestly live without that crap but I have to admit the heart was VERY good! Since that time I've always kept the heart if it's still in one piece. 2 years ago I shot a buck and told my buddies that I was going to fry up the heart in butter with some onions. They thought I was crazy until it was all ready to eat. After forcing them to try it I actually had to fight them off the stuff just so I could get a bite! They all loved it and plan to keep their hearts from now on also. It really is good stuff. Just slice it up thin and fry it in butter with onions. Mmmmmm... I can't wait until next year.

I've never tried anything other than deer so I don't know about elk/antelope.

NvrEnuf
 
Usually take the heart if it doesn't have to be packed too far...Occasionally take the liver...I can stand one meal of liver a year, sometimes...
The heart is usually the most tender muscle in the body where it has no ligments/tendons and membrane. It is a delicacy many places..
 
I enjoy Beef Tongue (lengua for those of you south of the border...well that does not apply any more).

I thought if beef tongue is good elk tongue must be good as well.

I will save you all the trouble of trying it. It was not good.
 
tex270 said "My mother has a way she cooks the heart, grinds it up and makes a delicious sandwich spread. Both are excellent eating."


I JUST PUKED IN MY MOUTH A LITTLE!!!!!
 
I leave them for the magpies.
I've eaten both liver and heart, and don't care for either.
 
Growing up hunting with dad and uncle, the heart and liver always came back. Usually cooked up for a big meal a few days into deer camp. Personally I don't eat it. I don't mind packing it out if there is a friend to get it out of the guts. I've got a pretty weak stomach, it is hard enough to field dress game while holding your breath. If I start rootin' through a gutpile, I'm just gonna puke on what someone else considers "edible"...........yuk.
 
Sageadvice, you have considered that just about anything dipped in egg, dredged in seasoned flour and fried in bacon grease tastes wonderful???

I leave 'em behind. Coyotes gotta eat too!
 
Leave them out there, to me isn't worth the pack. Plus I don't like eating liver flukes (or what ever they are called :-(

When I hunt whitetails I keep the heart for my grandma, she loves it, liver too but ain't no way I'm dragging that out for her.

Mntman

"Hunting is where you prove yourself"
 
I'm with KTC...every now and again and it always seems to taste better if i don't have to cook it.

There is no way I'm pak'n it out og the HC though.

Mike
 
I always take both the liver and heart even if I have to pack them out. We keep the tounge of the moose we kill also.
 
In the 80's First week of archery fresh liver and onions ( #1) second week (#2) then Muzzle Season
(#3) usually we had 1 or 2 more archery hunts (#4) First rifle elk (#5) Second rifle was 12 days guy I worked for booked 2 hunts, (#6) and (#7) then 3rd rifle (#8) 8 to 10 FRESH LIVER AND ONION DINNERS in 65 days. Since them days I tell my guys I DON?T PACK GUTS!!! In all honesty 20 years later I probably would enjoy
1 meal per fall.
 
Well, usually after I get done with my one shot, there is no heart left to salvage!

Actually in some traditions it is custom to take the heart and liver and wrap them in the bladder and then take them and bury them underneath the oldest nearby tree that can be found. This nourishes the spirit of the old tree and heals it and blesses the hunter with good fortune on the next hunt.

I hate it but my mom fries up the liver with onions. I have had heart, it is tough and chewy, not a lot of taste. Probably just like all the fish I have ever had, everyone tells me I would like it if it "were done just right". Yeah, no thanks.

But we don't waste it.

Unless of course my 150 grain boat tail does it for me!

UTROY
Proverbs 21:19 (why I hunt!)
 
Caelk,

i didn't tell the whole story. I had a long string of years where i killed a good blacktail barley buck every year, opening morning, on Grandpa's ranch. I'd pack it or drag it back to the ranch house, skin and half it on the antique singletree hanging from the old Elm tree in the yard. By the time this little chore was done, Grama, Nonnie, would already have that bucks heart all fried up, like i said, and along side some fresh ranch raised eggs, waiting on me in the kitchen.

Those were the days. I'd give anything i own, to just one more time, spend a morning with any one of those four most wonderful and loving people, my Grandparents.

The heart of a taken buck is a good meal, yes. But it's a lot more than that.

joey
 
Yep, I take the heart and the liver from elk. Sorry if the rest of ya don't have the balls to do it. Heart from deer also. Some folks need to learn the defnition of "guts". mtmuley
 
If I know someone will eat them I will pack them out. I myself am not a fan of heart or liver. I do think(not sure) that nevada regs say that it is waste to leave them. All my arrows have hit the lungs and missed the heart so they have been taken to my family so far.


nevadaanimatedhelmetwd2.gif
 
I can't believe all you guys waste the heart.That is the best meal on a deer.Deer heart fried in flour and Johnny's with a little onion at deer camp,topped off with a ice cold beer!It don't get any better than that. Liver ain't my favorite but my father-in-law loves it.I'm waiting for someone to say they leave the backstraps cause they're a pain to pack out!
 
I agree with Mtmuley. I was taught as a 12 year old eating the deer heart would help me think like a deer. Properly prepared deer heart is very good. I really think this is somewhat generational as well as geographical.I grew up in rural Oregon. Why take the liver and heart when you can go to McD's. For all I know the guys not taking the guts(heart and liver)are taking the pecker and oysters to eat. IMHO JB
 
Neither.

Tried 'em both years ago and hated 'em both too!

I guess I don't do organs...

GrizlyHunter
 
;
Yep, I take the heart and the liver from elk. Sorry if the rest of ya don't have the balls to do it. Heart from deer also. Some folks need to learn
;

Then why don't you eat the balls to! The liver is a filter.

What I don't take, is food for some thing else. And what ever that might be, won't have to kill another animal.

I don't take either!
Click to expand...
Click to expand...
 
I go outta my way to take the heart and liver! It's like a holiday dinner that gathers the family together. Everyone gets to see whats been taken and the stories of the hunt. Good times!!!
 

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