Steven Rinella Dons Locavore CamouflageSteven Rinella’s op-ed piece in today’s Times, in which the Scavenger’s Guide to Haute Cuisine author makes the case that hunters are not really hobbyists who enjoy killing animals, but rather proto-locavores, struck us as disingenuous on so many levels that we had to respond to it. First, Rinella wraps himself in green language as if it were a Thinsulate camo parka. “Hunters are the original locavores,” Rinella writes, bragging that his family used to eat three or four deer a year, along with various other unlucky birds and squirrels, and that he “carried that subsistence aesthetic into adulthood.” Subsistence aesthetic! Rinella’s from Twin Lake, Michigan! We would bet the closest he got to subsistence culture was running out of Pop-Tarts.
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Jay McInerney to Pair Fine Wines With Local Vermin
When we got word that Steven Rinella was throwing a dinner party for some friends (presumably to promote his book The Scavenger’s Guide to Haute Cuisine), we have to admit our interest was piqued. After all, the menu, in addition to the usual fare like pickled goose hearts, contained two rather curious items, to be paired with wines chosen by New York writer Jay McInerney: squirrel hasenpfeffer, for one, and grilled sparrows wrapped in prosciutto, skewered along with zucchini and hot Italian sausage made from a young antelope doe. Unlike the other menu items culled from places like Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and the international waters of British Columbia, the squirrels and sparrows were said to have come from “an undisclosed urban locality.” After some prying, we were told that that locality is none other than NYC. “He’s setting up traps in various locales,” Miramax’s publicist confirmed. To which we say —why stop at sparrows and squirrels? How about bringing some of those traps and a bottle of Malbec to the West 4th Street Taco Bell? — Daniel Maurer
Steven Rinella [Official site]
