The Scavenger's Guide to Haute Cuisine: How I Spent a Year in the American Wild to Re-create a Feast from the Classic Recipes of French Master Chef Auguste Escoffier

Steven Rinella

Sep 2015 · Sold by Random House

About this ebook

“[A] warped, wonderful memoir” (Men’s Journal) from the #1 New York Times bestselling author and host of Netflix’s MeatEater, about his quest to turn wild game into the meal of a lifetime
 
“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.

Ratings and reviews

Being someone who enjoys cooking and hunting, I found this to be a very entertaining read, and quite inspirational. Would recommend to anyone who enjoys cooking their wild game.

Stories within stories, an awesome journey across the country in search of lost edible gems.

Great book!

About the author

In addition to being an expert chef known for working with wild game, Steven Rinella is an outdoorsman, writer, and television and podcast personality with an exceptional ability to communicate the hunting lifestyle to a wide variety of audiences. The host of the television show and podcast MeatEater, he is also the author of two volumes of The Complete Guide to Hunting, Butchering, and Cooking Wild Game; Meat Eater: Adventures from the Life of an American Hunter; American Buffalo: In Search of a Lost Icon; and The Scavenger’s Guide to Haute Cuisine. His writing has appeared in many publications, including Outside, Field & Stream, The New Yorker, Glamour, The New York Times, Men’s Journal, Salon, O: The Oprah Magazine, Bowhunter, and the anthologies Best American Travel Writing and Best Food Writing.