Texas has more than 3.5 million deer, the largest population in the U.S., and about 600,000 deer hunters. During the 2012-13 hunting season, Hunters for the Hungry delivered nearly 133,000 pounds of venison to food pantries and kitchens in the state.
By: Mike Leggett
Texas Co-op Power
Issue: November 2013
When I was a kid, my mother mostly refused to throw some breading on a hunk of venison and toss it into a cast-iron skillet to fry. She was no vegetarian, of course. There aren’t many vegetarians traipsing around out there when there are hungry mouths to feed and only a vague idea where the next meal is coming from.
Ducks, fish, quail, squirrels, even squirrel brains, were fair game at our house. But deer, for some reason, she just wouldn’t do, even though we totaled eight people squeezed into a tiny, one-bathroom house living on a preacher’s salary when that salary was barely triple digits in a month.
We got by, as most rural families did after World War II, with chickens, butter, fat hogs, canned pickles and vegetables that church members dropped off in lieu of actual cash and some we grew ourselves.