Venison with Braised Cardoons

I fell in love with game when I worked in France after attending cooking school in Paris. I loved it all: wild boar, venison, wild ducks, and so on. The way chefs approached venison in those days was very old school. The meat would get a game marinade of onions, garlic, carrots, vinegar, and wine. Sometimes we would leave them in the marinade for a week if they were older. The venison we get in the U.S. is less gamey and therefore needs far less time in a marinade. You also want to preserve