As you know the town of Healy is a pretty small place. Most everyone that lives in the community knows each other or at least knows of each other, so people tend to keep track of what's going on around town. There are various ways of keeping up to date with the local happenings. As you can imagine, a lot of folks in this area enjoy hunting and using the meat that they catch as meat for their tables. There are many different hunting seasons for various animals, which is all regulated by the state and is used in many cases to help manage the wild population.
Also you can guess that with one main highway running through this area, some animals attempt to cross that highway from time to time. In most cases animals cross the road without mishap. However, every so often and animal is caught off guard and cannot judge the speed of the cars and trucks that are on the highway. When this kind of meeting occurs the car gets damaged, but the animal usually ends up as what is known as road kill.
This is my first time eating road kill moose burgers!
Sometimes this road kill happens to be a moose that was accidently hit by a vehicle at night. When this kind of thing happens in an area like this there is a call list of people who sign up so that they can be informed when this kind of meat is available. If you are on this list, you may get a call at any time of day or night. If you are in the market for meat, and can get down to the right location, in a hurry, then you can claim the meat and carry it off for your use.
This meat is very red and very lean.
If sound a bit strange to some of us, but it is a very practical way of dealing with animals on the road and at the same time not wasting good meat. Our neighbors happen to be on that list, and became the proud owners of a good chunk of moose meat this week. They very generously passed some of that ground meat to us. So this evening I gathered it up, formed a couple of patties with it and made myself a moose burger. I have to say that it was very good. It tasted a bit different than what I'm used to, but not that different. The meat was very red and very lean. So I fried it up in a pan, added a slice of cheese a little mustard and two pieces of toast, and there you have it! This isn't my first moose meal, but it is the first obtained in this manner. I must say that I will look at road kill a bit differently from now on.
It looks like a burger, it smells like a burger….
and it tastes like a pretty good burger!