Weekly Survival Tip #4- Preparing wild game

April 6, 10:06 PMApocalypse ExaminerWyatt Shev

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After the bombs drop, you’re on your own. No more supermarkets. No more KFC. No more Sunday dinners at your parent’s house. Time to put those countless lost hours watching Man vs. Wild on the History Channel to good use. Or, if you’re like me, and were very, very drunk and/or high whilst watching the whimsical adventures of Bear Grylls, consider the following Tip a helpful reminder.

Okay kids… so you’ve built your very own fire. Perhaps you’ve even drunk your own urine, which is irrelevant, but amusing nonetheless. Point is, you’ve got a fire. Now you’ve got to put something in it.

Unfortunately, you can’t just go around tossing slain deer and enormous mutated sewer rat corpses into open fires, and then expect to chow down on the results. It’s a little more complicated than that. There’s a process, people- and it pays to follow it to the ‘t’.

First off, kill something. I recommend using a gun for this, but if a gun isn’t available, a hunting knife and a crazed, hungry look in your eye will do. In the very worst of circumstances, when no weaponry whatsoever is available, consider hiding in the bushes and stalking your prey like a big game cat. Time your pounce just right, and you’re in with a chance.

Anyhow, after you’ve shot/stabbed/strangled your prey to death, it’s time to get to field dressing. Prepare your future feast in a clean area, away from any dirt and grime. You don’t want that stuff mingling in with the blood and guts that will soon (hopefully) be swimming around in your stomach.

Let’s say you’re dressing a big buck, or perhaps a particularly large person (remember- there are no rules post Apocalypse). You’re gonna want to gut that sucker to get things started. Prop your prey up on its back and use a sharp knife to make a shallow incision just above the genitals, cutting up through to the rib cage. Careful not to puncture any organs, especially the intestine- trust me, you don’t want to know what goes on in there.

Now turn the bleeding mess on it’s side- it’s gutting time.

Hack away at the fat surrounding the intestines to allow those guts to flow freely. This is where things get complicated. There’s a few different organs to remove here to ensure your meat won’t be spoiled.

As every kind of animal has a different internal layout, here are a few basic things to remember. You’re gonna want to be real careful around anything even slightly resembling a bladder or anus. One wrong slip, and your meal will literally taste like shit. Heart, lungs, kidneys, all that junk- just toss it all. Basically, if you can’t order it at an Outback Steakhouse, you don’t want to eat it- no matter what you hear they eat over in China. Believe me, when it comes to food preparation, the Chinese know what they’re doing. Us spoilt Westerners can’t even stay awake through an entire episode of Man vs. Wild.

Now… skinning. This should be relatively easy, after the punishment you’ve just endured wrist-deep in a beast’s belly. Hang your blood-spattered corpse up high, preferably by a hook. If no hooks are available, enlist the help of a very tall, very strong man. Now take your trusty gutting knife- you may want to clean it first- and cut around the throat. Connect this cut with the earlier one you made up to the stomach. Now peel that sucker like a banana- grab a hold and pull down, hard. Careful the flesh doesn’t peel off with the hide. If it does, just hack away at it with your knife- a handy solution to practically every problem you’ll encounter skinning a creature.

If you’re skinning a quadruped like a deer, wild boar or a former house pet, you’ll need hack off the legs before you can pull the hide down off ‘em. A hacksaw is preferable to your knife for this kind of operation, although I can assure you a knife will do in a pinch, especially if you haven’t eaten in weeks.

Don’t forget to save your hide for curing and tanning, something I’ll explore in the coming weeks.

Of course, I’m over-simplifying things. The arts of dressing and skinning wild game are infinitely more complicated and involved than what I’ve implied in this column. However, these basic rules should find you in adequate stead to take on the final step in the preparation process, butchering. Join me next week to find out how to slice and dice your quarry like an old pro.

There are now only 1354 days left until the End of the World.