By Emily Darrell
Staff Writer

When local butcher Jonathan Nadolski was growing up, he remembers all the outdoorsman shows on TV saying the same thing about deer hunting: Aim for the heart.

But Nadolski doesn’t buy into this piece of conventional wisdom. The best place to shoot a deer, he believes, is not the heart, but the head.

Why?

Because nearly every other part of the animal makes too good of eating. Aim for the heart and you’ll ruin the ribs.

“Does anyone eat the ribs?” asked one of the dozen or so men that attended Thursday night’s deer processing workshop held at Nadolski’s River Road butcher shop.

“A lot of people don’t,” Nadolski answered, “but they’re really nice.”

“On a small deer like that?” asked another participant somewhat skeptically. “Would you eat those ribs?”
Nadolski asserted that he would eat those ribs, and has, in fact, eaten many like them. He suggested marinating the ribs in beer, slow cooking them on 280, and adding a little barbeque sauce if so desired.  “Everybody’s got to get head shots from now on,” Nadolski joked.

The deer, which was supplied by Powhatan non-profit FrancisEmma, was a young one, evident, Nadolski said, by the color of its flesh.

During the two-hour class, which was organized by the Center for Rural Culture as part of their “Homestead Series,” Nadolski, using little more than a meat saw, a boning knife, and his bare hands – “It’s amazing how much butchering you can do with just your bare hands” –turned a whole carcass (skinned, gutted, and cured prior to the workshop) into an assortment of stew meat and flank steaks, ribeyes and racks of venison.

Along the way he offered cooking tips and serving suggestions. He called bone marrow “one of the most revered parts on an animal” and explained its importance in thickening and flavoring stock.

He explained that if you own a meat grinder and have trouble with it clogging, your meat is probably not cold enough. “You don’t want to freeze it all the way through,” he said, “but you want it where it’s crusty on the outside.”

He discussed hanging, curing, and aging. “The key to aging is you don’t want to cover it and you don’t want to put it on a plate. The air needs to circulate or [the meat] will rot.”

Garlic and dried fruits –such as blueberries, plums, or juniper berries –were suggested as fillings to be wrapped inside a tied roast. Sherry and port wine, Nadolski said, are excellent flavorings for venison stew.

Nadolski suggested utilizing the bones by making osso bucco (Italian for “bone with a hole”) a Milanese dish, typically made with veal, but which can be adapted to deer meat. 

While clearly a gourmand, Nadolski offered several practical –even cost-saving –suggestions such as how to use fishing line and a door handle – “$1.99 at Southern States” he said – to make a deboning tool.

Overall the workshop attendees seemed very pleased with the evening’s presentation. “I thought it was excellent,” said Goochland resident Robbie Bridges. “I got a lot of good ideas. But it takes a lot of practice, I think.”

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The Center for Rural Culture is a 501(c)(3) non-profit “whose mission is to educate, promote and inspire members of our community to sustain a culture that supports agriculture and the local economy, protects natural and historic resources, and maintains our rural character and traditions.”

The year-long Homestead Series program is slated to include workshops in composting, brewing beer, and soap-making, among others.