“If you want to keep your appetite, stay out of the kitchen.” Auguste Escoffier,1903
I just finished reading a great book entitled The Scavenger’s Guide to Haute Cuisine by
Steven Rinella. The story in a nutshell is about Rinella, a fellow Michigander,
who spent an entire year traveling all over the United States scavenging and
hunting enough food for a huge 3 day feast. But this is no ordinary feast and
it is no ordinary food.
Rinella grew up hunting and fishing in Michigan so he was
totally comfortable eating all kinds of critters and birds. When he got his
hands on a 5,000 page French cookbook, called Le Guide Culinaire written by Auguste Escoffier in 1903, he was
inspired to try his hand at the art of using wild game in high cuisine. And not
just your basic wild game, but every part of every type of animal…. You know,
the weird parts of every animal…. Think bladders, livers and hearts.
I was completely surprised to learn that French high cuisine
in the early 1900’s included much of this type of food - folks just couldn’t
eat enough sparrows and gizzards! Escoffier says that during the difficult war
years, when food was scarce, he was forced to use every scrap of food and he
served military officers braised horse, cats and dogs, and even rats. I guess
that even the zoo animals were eaten once their own food had run out.
Anyway, Rinella decides to host a 3 day feast - 15 courses each day! – all based on Le Guide Culinaire. He spends an entire year, traveling around the
country hunting big game - deer, elk, bear, antelope, goats and mules – and
fishing all kinds of waters for all kinds of swimming things – turtles, eels, rays,
frogs and even carp.
I’m not going to spoil the ending of the book by telling how
the feast went…..let’s just say his vegetarian girlfriend puts on a brave face
as a big plate of coeur de veau saute is placed in front of her…..that’s elk heart
with béchamel sauce for those of you not ‘in-the-know.’
I thought I would hate this book, with all its gruesome
description of slaughtering and butchering and slicing, but I actually found it
super interesting. In my opinion, there is nothing wrong with a thoughtful
person ‘taking’ (even hunters don’t use the work ‘kill’) his food from nature and
then carefully using the animal to his benefit. What makes me dizzy is the
thought of all the misused animals shot full of antibiotics, crammed in
deplorable conditions all for our eating pleasure. Where’s the care and thought
in any of that? I think both Rinella and
Escoffier would agree with me.
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