Synopses & Reviews
A nature writer's obsession with a 100-year-old cookbook leads him on
a fascinating journey into the American wilderness.
A hybrid of memoir, cookbook, and travelogue, and a love song to hunting and fishing
and the American wild, The Scavengers Guide to Haute Cuisine is about
one man's quest to live off the land and recreate the recipes from Escoffier's
Le Guide Culinaire, the 1903 magnum opus that still stands as one of the
greatest haute cuisine cookbooks ever written.
Nature writer Steven Rinella takes along his vegetarian girlfriend and a cast
of eccentric friends and embarks on a year-long journey across America, trying
to locate the bizarre, often esoteric ingredients of Le Guide Culinaire,
such as animal organs and the surprisingly elusive street pigeon. His adventures
take him fishing for stingrays on a Florida beach; skinning eels with an upstate
New Yorker who keeps an emu as company; hunting mountain goats on the snow-covered
cliffs of Alaskas Chugach Range; and flying from Montana to Michigan to
collect a fifteen pound snapping turtle his mother found on the highway. Originating
in an article Rinella wrote for Outside magazine, The Scavengers
Guide is written in prose thats as clear and pleasing as a mountain
stream and is ultimately an ode to mother nature. The result is a narrative
that opens up a deeper understanding of the things we eat and how the natural
world affects the way we live.
Review
"Rinella's warped, wonderful memoir...is enough to sate anyone's hunger....He recounts these madcap wilderness adventures with delicious verve and charm." Men's Journal
Review
"A captivating culinary project a mouth-watering memoir." Kirkus
Review
"Readers of outdoor humorist Patrick McManus will find Rinella's airy style very similar and often as funny. Vegetarians should steer clear, however, since the book is devoted to hunting, fishing, and raising animals for the ultimate incredible feast." Library Journal
Synopsis
This book is about one man's fascinating quest to live off the land and recreate the recipes from Escoffier's "Le Guide Culinaire," the 1903 magnum opus that still stands as one of the greatest haute cuisine cookbooks ever written.
About the Author
Steven Rinella is a Michigan native and correspondent for Outside magazine. His essays and reporting have appeared in the New Yorker, Nerve, DoubleTake, The Best American Travel Writing (2004), and Field and Stream. He lives in Miles City, Montana. This is his first book.