The Scavenger's Guide to Haute Cuisine
No, this is not a book about dumpster diving. Instead, it's the account of how Rinella, anOutsidecorrespondent, set off on a quixotic year-long adventure in the wild with the end goal of preparing a three-day, 45-course banquet chosen from master chef Escoffier's classic 1903Le Guide Culinaire, now considered (by most people) an exotic historical document rather than a working cookbook. Rinella intended to shoot, fish, slaughter, raise (as in pigeon husbandry), gather and otherwise procure the ingredients for these dishes himself, with help from his fishing and hunting buddies (also with the aid of freezers, which Escoffier would no doubt have envied). Rinella's girlfriend is a vegetarian, and he's aware that this project may seem distressing to some, but he offers a spirited defense of choosing to "make his own food." Rinella's year took him all over the U.S. and Canada with plenty of unusual outdoor adventures: frog gigging, eeling, "glassing" for elk, making headcheese and sparrow-trapping. Preparing the feast, with its huge list of ingredients, took more than a week, with hard-breathing last-minute tension. Some dishes worked, some didn't (e.g., Crayfish Mousse, and Elk and Antelope Kidney Pudding). This unusual memoir could serve as a tasty gift for sporting types.(Mar.)Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.