Meat Eater
Adventures from the Life of an American Hunter
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4.9 • 11 Ratings
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- $17.99
Publisher Description
From the #1 New York Times bestselling author and host of Netflix’s MeatEater comes “a unique and valuable alternate view of where our food comes from” (Anthony Bourdain).
“Revelatory . . . With every chapter, you get a history lesson, a hunting lesson, a nature lesson, and a cooking lesson. . . . Meat Eater offers an overabundance to savor.”—The New York Times Book Review
Meat Eater chronicles Steven Rinella’s lifelong relationship with nature and hunting through the lens of ten hunts, beginning when he was an aspiring mountain man at age ten and ending as a thirty-seven-year-old Brooklyn father who hunts in the remotest corners of North America. He tells of having a struggling career as a fur trapper just as fur prices were falling; of a dalliance with catch-and-release steelhead fishing; of canoeing in the Missouri Breaks in search of mule deer just as the Missouri River was freezing up one November; and of hunting the elusive Dall sheep in the glaciated mountains of Alaska.
A thrilling storyteller, Rinella grapples with themes such as the role of the hunter in shaping America, the vanishing frontier, the ethics of killing, and the disappearance of the hunter himself as consumers lose their connection with the way their food finds its way to their tables. The result is a loving portrait of a way of life that is part of who we are—as humans and as Americans.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Rinella (American Buffalo: In Search of a Lost Icon) chronicles his evolution as a hunter (and trapper and fisherman) from shooting squirrels with a BB gun during his Michigan childhood to hunting deer in "the wildest corner of the Wild West" or tracking Dall sheep in the mountains of Alaska, while his wife and son are home in the civilized environs of New York City. Woven into Rinella's thoughtful prose detailing his outdoor adventures (or misadventures, in some cases) are historical, ecological, or technical observations dealing with the landscape, the animals, or the manner in which the game is harvested. Also, almost every chapter is finished with short "Tasting Notes" that outline the culinary dos and don'ts for meat from game like squirrel, black bear, and mountain lion. Rinella has a passion for hunting and wilderness that comes across in his writing, and even if you don't agree with his ideas on hunting lions with dogs or catch-and-release fishing you can't help pondering the arguments he makes. And that seems to be the point of the book, to make you think about your relationship with nature, about what you eat and why you eat it and if that's Rinella's motivation, this book succeeds. B&w photos.
Customer Reviews
Authentic
So many hunting writers try to be something they are not, and in doing so they lose much of what they brought to the table in the first place. Not so here. If I had to describe this book in only a few words they would be authentic, unpretentious, genuine and thought provoking. Rinella’s willingness to explore the things we sometimes have to do, in order to learn why they are not done, to find fault in our own past actions and decisions to explain who we are now, is both disarming and engaging. And perhaps a little uncomfortable at times for those who share similar memories. A great read, don’t miss it.