From the host of the television series and podcast MeatEater, the long-awaited definitive guide to cooking wild game, including fish and fowl, featuring more than 100 new recipes
“As a MeatEater fan who loves to cook, I can tell you that this book is a must-have.”—Andrew Zimmern
When Steven Rinella hears from fans of his MeatEater show and podcast, it’s often requests for more recipes. One of the most respected and beloved hunters in America, Rinella is also an accomplished wild game cook, and he offers recipes here that range from his takes on favorite staples to more surprising and exotic meals.
Big Game: Techniques and strategies for butchering and cooking all big game, from whitetail deer to moose, wild hogs, and black bear, and recipes for everything from shanks to tongue.
Small Game: How to prepare appetizers and main courses using common small game species such as squirrels and rabbits as well as lesser-known culinary treats like muskrat and beaver.
Waterfowl: How to make the most of available waterfowl, ranging from favorites like mallards and wood ducks to more challenging birds, such as wild geese and diving ducks.
Upland Birds: A wide variety of butchering methods for all upland birds, plus recipes, including Thanksgiving wild turkey, grilled grouse, and a fresh take on jalapeño poppers made with mourning dove.
Freshwater Fish: Best practices for cleaning and cooking virtually all varieties of freshwater fish, including trout, bass, catfish, walleye, suckers, northern pike, eels, carp, and salmon.
Saltwater Fish: Handling methods and recipes for common and not-so-common species of saltwater fish encountered by anglers everywhere, from Maine to the Bahamas, and from Southern California to northern British Columbia.
Everything else: How to prepare great meals from wild clams, crabs, crayfish, mussels, snapping turtles, bullfrogs, and even sea cucumbers and alligators.
Whether you’re cooking outdoors or in the kitchen, at the campfire or on the grill, this cookbook will be an indispensable guide for both novices and expert chefs.
“Rinella goes to the next level and offers some real deal culinary know-how to make sure that your friends and family will dig what you put on the table.”—Guy Fieri
“[A] must-read cookbook for those seeking a taste of the wild.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)
In addition to being an expert chef known for working with wild game, Steven Rinella is an outdoorsman, writer, and television and podcast personality with an exceptional ability to communicate the hunting lifestyle to a wide variety of audiences. The host of the television show and podcast MeatEater, he is also the author of two volumes of The Complete Guide to Hunting, Butchering, and Cooking Wild Game; Meat Eater: Adventures from the Life of an American Hunter; American Buffalo: In Search of a Lost Icon; and The Scavenger’s Guide to Haute Cuisine. His writing has appeared in many publications, including Outside, Field & Stream, The New Yorker, Glamour, The New York Times, Men’s Journal, Salon, O: The Oprah Magazine, Bowhunter, and the anthologies Best American Travel Writing and Best Food Writing.
“As a MeatEater fan who loves to cook, I can tell you that this book is a must-have for anyone who ever spends any time harvesting food in the outdoors. The recipes are superb and simple, and the learning here is immense. Most importantly, home cooks looking for great ways to stretch their boundaries even in the smallest ways will delight in this superb reference for fish and game meat cookery. Steven Rinella is the total package when it comes to food and the great outdoors.”—Andrew Zimmern
“Field-to-table cooking is ‘the new black.’ But when it comes to cookin’ up wild game, it’s important to give the animal the respect it deserves both in the field and the kitchen, as it’s not as simple as just throwin’ everything on the grill and expecting a great outcome. In The MeatEater Fish and Game Cookbook, Steven Rinella goes to the next level and offers some real deal culinary know-how to make sure that your friends and family will dig what you put on the table.”—Guy Fieri
“As a hunter and a chef, I appreciate the mindfulness and awareness that Steven Rinella brings to conservation and food utilization. His work is thoughtful and necessary for a modern world that is reconnecting with its food sources.”—Joshua Skenes
“In this insightful and straightforward look at cooking what one hunts, [Rinella] proves to be as skilled with a pen as he is with a gun. . . . Rinella includes clear, photo-enhanced instructions on gutting, skinning, and butchering, along with taste charts that explain the differing flavors and textures of similar beasts. . . . The nose-to-tail approach incorporates everything from bullfrog legs (simmered in butter and wine) to duck hearts (grilled and served with a walnut pesto). Rinella is at the top of his game in this must-read cookbook for those seeking a taste of the wild.”—Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“Yes, you should actually buy this fish and game cookbook . . . full of helpful information for the hunter and non-hunter alike. . . . Anyone new to hunting or fishing will find a wealth of solutions to the mysteries upon which they are embarking. What strikes me about this book, however, is not how helpful it is for hunters. For while there can be no doubt about that . . . what is far more interesting is how useful this book is for people who don’t hunt, who don’t have game to process. . . . Due to Rinella’s use of different types of game as an organizing principle, the book is wonderfully varied. There are recipes for goose pastrami, tea smoked duck, marrow bones and hot pots. Because he is not pinned to a restaurant or a region, Rinella is free to include recipes from all over the world, at varying levels of difficulty. He douses salmon in tequila to make a cilantro hinted gravlax, and fills up big pots to make a crab boil. . . . Is this a cookbook, as it claims, for every hunter and angler? Of course it is. But it’s also a cookbook for everyone else.”—The Daily Beast
