A juicy cut of beef is a fine thing, but the taste of wild meat taps deep into ancestral memory. It may account in part for the aura of terror and mystery that French writers have always woven around the Sologne, making it sound like Gallic ''Blair Witch'' territory. All over the region, from October to December, hunters clad in olive green descend on the local inns, carrying their disassembled rifles in neat tan cases that make them look like students on the way to a bassoon lesson. The shop windows are filled with duck-themed suspenders, neckties and highball glasses. Socks and shirts share shelf space with cans of Italian rifle grease and bags of Hog Wild, an American grain mixture that's scattered on the ground to attract wild boar.
Hikers walk with a wary tread.
Today is a hunting day. The Sologne is almost certainly the only region in France with a museum of poaching. In the United States, drivers know they're in hunting territory when the highway signs show a leaping deer. In the Sologne, the signs show boar, deer and stag, stacked one on top of the other. I don't hunt.