Western Pennsylvania hunters who grew up eating "deer meat" might be surprised to know what divine fare hung in their garage every autumn. Considered routine around here, often even inferior to domestic meat, venison was ritualized as sacred food, served as sacrificial dishes to gods in Mayan and other cultures across pre-Spanish Central and South America.

Today, venison is regaining some of its status. Choice cuts of loin and steak sell for over $35 per pound in some specialty shops or Internet operations dealing in farmed venison, and a deer entree in trendy restaurants can set you back a third of what it costs hunters to have a whole deer butchered, wrapped and frozen.

Deer meat is going gourmet, and it deserves the acclaim.

"I eat grass-fed beef and locally raised lamb. But if restricted to just one meat, it would be a bottomlands whitetail doe," said Tom Dickson, editor of Montana Outdoors magazine, hunter and amateur venison chef. "A trimmed, raw venison steak smells as fresh as a cool fall morning. When cooked, it becomes delicately textured and finely flavored. I'm not alone in my praise. Chefs throughout the world extol venison's culinary virtues."

Those creative cooks are taking deer meat beyond the chili pot and burger grill, featuring venison in daring pairings with everything from a sauce of pears poached in red wine to wild mushroom reductions. Venison was even the featured "secret ingredient" in a recent airing of the popular Food Network show "Iron Chef."

People who work with deer meat every day -- at least in the fall -- have noticed the trends.

"Some of our best customers are now people you wouldn't automatically expect to eat deer meat," said Ruth Firnett who, with her husband Dave, owns and operates D&R Processing in rural Wallace, Mich. "Some don't even hunt, but maybe a friend has given them a deer. Some people call and ask if we sell venison, which we can't do unless it's farm-raised."

Much of the wider demand for deer meat is due to its health attributes and the realization that eating deer is "eating green." Venison has about 1/3 the calories of beef and less cholesterol than skinned chicken breast. Farm-raised venison can be less environmentally disruptive than beef or hog operations, while wild venison requires no landscape alteration and little transport when killed locally.

"All kinds of people are finding out how good it is, that it's natural and not fed this or that. People seem to be looking more toward that in what they eat," Firnett said.

The Firnetts believe that hunters who harvest such high quality bounty -- for a fraction of the cost of buying it -- should do everything they can to make venison as good as it can be.

"People call or e-mail us and say 'Our family doesn't like venison,' " Firnett said. "But then maybe they admit that they had the meat in the freezer for 10 years or they cooked it until it was like leather. I tell them that's why they don't like it. Venison is a high quality food that deserves high quality care."

Ruth Firnett's "go-to" advice for good deer meat is to avoid overcooking, especially the choice cuts: chops, tenderloin and steak.

"My mother was a really good cook, and we grew up eating venison at home, but I hated it then because my mother cooked it too long until it was like jerky," Firnett said. "You have to recognize that venison is different from beef and other red meats because it's so much more lean and prepare it accordingly."

Dickson agrees, observing that choice cuts of venison don't need to be fancy to be great.

"The gold standard recipe for any choice cut is to simply season with salt and pepper and grill or saute the meat in olive oil for several minutes on each side," he said.

According to Firnett, quality venison starts long before it hits the grill or the pan.

Deer should be carefully field dressed to avoid spilling waste matter onto the meat. Immediately rinse the inside of the carcass with water to remove pooling blood, pack it with snow or ice -- or at least prop open the chest cavity with a stick -- to keep it cool, gently drag it from the field to avoid bruising, and butcher it as soon as possible. Hunters who drive around to show off their freshly killed trophies may be earning bragging points, but they're also diminishing the quality of the meat.

"Field care is really important. It's why some people don't like deer meat -- they've had venison that someone didn't take the time and effort with in the woods," Firnett said. "We've refused deer here that weren't taken care of. We're not going to put a deer that was too warm or wasn't field dressed properly in our cooler. We do only a limited number of deer every fall and we don't want the kind of customer who doesn't care about quality venison."

Firnett would like to count Montana's Dickson among her clients.

"When the hunting season ends, I like to open our freezer and gaze at those tidy white packets of wrapped venison, stacked on the shelves like bricks of gold," Dickson said.

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