Scan barcode
grapestakes's review
2.0
This book offered great perspective on humans' relationship to food, and it started very strong, unfortunately it turned out quite boring. The narrative would cut out for aimless rambles. Other sections read as endless monotonous lists. The relationship with Diana also made me uncomfortable- the theme of trying to change his partner made Rinella very unlikeable. Mediocre writing overall.
lizakessler's review
4.0
It's like Julie and Julia with more blood and less neuroses. Win!
This book was completely enjoyable except for the author's constant complaining about vegetarians and his ceaseless attempt to convert his poor girlfriend away from vegetarianism.
This book was completely enjoyable except for the author's constant complaining about vegetarians and his ceaseless attempt to convert his poor girlfriend away from vegetarianism.
mcmoots's review
3.0
Field and Stream meets Julie and Julia. Rinella sets himself a goal of hunting and fishing for the ingredients of a grand feast based on Escoffier's Guide Cuilinaire; the book is the story of his outdoor excursions, and his encounters with assorted folks who have devoted their lives to the pursuit of sparrow-trapping, eel-smoking, or subsistence fishing. The actual cooking given short shrift, which is disappointing, but probably for the best in terms of the overall length and flow of the book.
Rinella skillfully weaves his chapters together with a couple of ongoing threads of conflict: Will he ever get a squab? Will his vegetarian girlfriend become a meat-eater? Since the last couple of memoirs I've read suffered from the lack of large-scale narrative arc, it was a relief to be reminded that you can write this kind of book as a book, rather than as an essay collection. The pigeon-hunting and pigeon-raising stories were great.
The girlfriend stuff, though... Rinella might be a skilled writer but I have no idea what his girlfriend saw in him; whenever he talks about their relationship, or her vegetarianism, or his ceaseless meat-related wheedling and manipulation, he comes off as a total jerk. Actually, whenever he writes about women, he comes off as a jerk - he frequently introduces female characters with a paean to their physical appearance and then moves to a discussion of how silly it is when they talk. In a book devoted to detailed discussions of historical butchering practices, I had to get my gross-outs from sexism? Bleah.
Rinella skillfully weaves his chapters together with a couple of ongoing threads of conflict: Will he ever get a squab? Will his vegetarian girlfriend become a meat-eater? Since the last couple of memoirs I've read suffered from the lack of large-scale narrative arc, it was a relief to be reminded that you can write this kind of book as a book, rather than as an essay collection. The pigeon-hunting and pigeon-raising stories were great.
The girlfriend stuff, though... Rinella might be a skilled writer but I have no idea what his girlfriend saw in him; whenever he talks about their relationship, or her vegetarianism, or his ceaseless meat-related wheedling and manipulation, he comes off as a total jerk. Actually, whenever he writes about women, he comes off as a jerk - he frequently introduces female characters with a paean to their physical appearance and then moves to a discussion of how silly it is when they talk. In a book devoted to detailed discussions of historical butchering practices, I had to get my gross-outs from sexism? Bleah.
sandyd's review
4.0
Interesting, but a bit uneven. This young guy who grew up in Michigan with a bunch of brothers (in family that does a lot of hunting and fishing) gets a copy of Escoffier's encyclopedic classic to French cuisine - Le Guide Culinaire (published in 1903). After a bad job making snapping turtle soup, he decides he needs to cook a feast using Escoffier's recipes and meats he has collected and hunted himself, with some help from friends.
A huge variety of foods were used then - weird organs that get thrown away or turned into catfood today. And lots of foods we don't eat now - sparrows, squabs (baby pigeons), all kinds of weird fish, etc. So the author describes the year he spent collecting all of this stuff - gigging for bullfrogs in Michigan, hunting bears in Alaska, fishing for shrimp and eels and rays, hunting elk in Montana (where he lives with his girlfriend - a vegetarian), wild boars in California, climbing on top of air conditioners in back alleys in various towns in Montana trying to find baby pigeons.
Rinella is not as skilled a writer as Anthony Bourdain, but if you like reading about unusual foods - and hunting - you'll probably enjoy this. I think this could have been fantastic if it had been edited a bit better - the narrative wanders a bit too much, and it gets confusing sometimes when he goes off on a tangent about his father and WWII and their food.
I would love to have been at the 3-day feast that he served all of his friends at the end - with 45 courses.
A huge variety of foods were used then - weird organs that get thrown away or turned into catfood today. And lots of foods we don't eat now - sparrows, squabs (baby pigeons), all kinds of weird fish, etc. So the author describes the year he spent collecting all of this stuff - gigging for bullfrogs in Michigan, hunting bears in Alaska, fishing for shrimp and eels and rays, hunting elk in Montana (where he lives with his girlfriend - a vegetarian), wild boars in California, climbing on top of air conditioners in back alleys in various towns in Montana trying to find baby pigeons.
Rinella is not as skilled a writer as Anthony Bourdain, but if you like reading about unusual foods - and hunting - you'll probably enjoy this. I think this could have been fantastic if it had been edited a bit better - the narrative wanders a bit too much, and it gets confusing sometimes when he goes off on a tangent about his father and WWII and their food.
I would love to have been at the 3-day feast that he served all of his friends at the end - with 45 courses.
eldang's review
5.0
It's not often that I read books about cooking. It's even rarer that I read "manly" books about going out into the wilds and hunting elk and bear. Yet this somehow managed to be both of these things and quite wonderful.
The premise is simple: man who likes to hunt and forage (but disdains showily macho hunter culture and is just a tad hippy) discovers a vintage French cookbook that is Wagnerian in its ambition and Biblical in its influence, and decides to put on a 3-day feast with a total of 21 recipes from the book. Much of the story hinges on gathering the ingredients, which range from game he hunts himself and mushrooms he forages for through absurd misadventures in fowl-rearing to simply tracking down suppliers of things that have gone out of fashion as food. Many of the interesting characters are the food suppliers, and the book is filled with stories of where things came from and how delightfully obsessive the people involved are.
This book's a perfect companion to the Michael Pollan narratives that have become so very popular over the past few years, but it takes a much less lecturing tone. Simply by the example it sets out, it reminded me of all the reasons food is simply more appealing when it hasn't been mass-produced.
The premise is simple: man who likes to hunt and forage (but disdains showily macho hunter culture and is just a tad hippy) discovers a vintage French cookbook that is Wagnerian in its ambition and Biblical in its influence, and decides to put on a 3-day feast with a total of 21 recipes from the book. Much of the story hinges on gathering the ingredients, which range from game he hunts himself and mushrooms he forages for through absurd misadventures in fowl-rearing to simply tracking down suppliers of things that have gone out of fashion as food. Many of the interesting characters are the food suppliers, and the book is filled with stories of where things came from and how delightfully obsessive the people involved are.
This book's a perfect companion to the Michael Pollan narratives that have become so very popular over the past few years, but it takes a much less lecturing tone. Simply by the example it sets out, it reminded me of all the reasons food is simply more appealing when it hasn't been mass-produced.
More...