The Scavenger's Guide to Haute Cuisine

Book excerpt: “If Jack Kerouac had hung out with Julia Child instead of Neal Cassady, this book might have been written fifty years ago.”—The Wall Street Journal When outdoorsman, avid hunter, and nature writer Steven Rinella stumbles upon Auguste Escoffier’s 1903 milestone Le Guide Culinaire, he’s inspired to assemble an unusual feast: a forty-five-course meal born entirely of Escoffier’s esoteric wild game recipes. Over the course of one unforgettable year, he steadily procures his ingredients—fishing for stingrays in Florida, hunting mountain goats in Alaska, flying to Michigan to obtain a fifteen-pound snapping turtle—and encountering one colorful character after another. And as he introduces his vegetarian girlfriend to a huntsman’s lifestyle, Rinella must also come to terms with the loss of his lifelong mentor—his father. An absorbing account of one man’s relationship with family, friends, food, and the natural world, The Scavenger’s Guide to Haute Cuisine is a rollicking tale of the American wild and its spoils.