So I found a random zip lock bag in the freezer. It had a symbol written on the zip lock that was a circle with the arrow pointing out. You know the one, the global symbol of the male (as opposed to the circle with the cross on the inside which is the symbol of a female).

Upon further consideration, I determined that it must have been given to me by some random person (I know, how bad of me not to remember) and knowing my friends it was most likely vension. The symbol was to indicate that it was a buck.

I thawed it out in the fridge for a couple of days. When thawed, I determined it was either a ham or a shoulder. The problem with that “either” is that you cook the two in totally different ways. I looked and determined that it was pretty soft and therefore I should probably cook it fast to rare or medium rare, as opposed to smoking it for a long period of time.

Not knowning much about the age of the buck or what it ate, I decided against brining and just went with a strong rub. I used Dizzy Pig Red Eye Express which is a coffee infused rub with a decent amount of both sugar and spice. I figured that if I had underestimated the gameyness of the meat that the spice, sugar and coffee would tame it and if it was a mild flavor that the spice wouldn’t be over the top. I also decided to use a decent amount of smoke for the same reasons.

The roast was slightly pink and not at all tender. The rub went well. The flavor was gamey enough that I knew (and my wife knew) it was venison, but it wasn’t overpowering. Overall, for starting with no clue as to what I was cooking I was quite pleased.

As a bit of a follow up note, when looking for an image for the post, I disvoered that the symbol is the symbol of mars and was initially used to denote the gender of plants (plants have genders?…cool).