If You Are What You Eat, He's Dead Meat (cont.)

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Outside Magazine December 2004

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If You Are What You Eat, He's Dead Meat (cont.)

IN ESCOFFIER'S DAY, wild-game eating was so commonplace that the term "wild-game chef" would have been redundant. Before his death in 1935, Escoffier made four journeys to the New World, where he surely dined on a wide array of American game. In 1903, at the time of Le Guide's publication, you could walk into Delmonico's Restaurant, in New York City, and order such favorites as diamondback terrapin (a small eastern turtle), whitetail deer, and canvasback duck.

Delmonico's opened its doors in 1830 and enjoyed 93 years of business. But the same factors that finally brought the restaurant to its knees were to blame for the demise of wild-game eating in general. Prohibition, enacted in 1919, was a deadly blow: Without legal access to alcohol for cooking, many popular wild-game dishes were deleted from the Delmonico's menu. The other problem was the wholesale wildlife slaughter of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. One of the most popular Delmonico's dishes was the passenger pigeon, which went extinct in 1914. By the time the restaurant closed its doors, on May 1, 1923, a proliferation of state and federal laws had banned the sale of wild game in the United States. These days, the game served in the "wild game" restaurants popping up in major cities has been farm-raised.

It's surprising to me that faux wild game is gaining popularity in a society that is too squeamish and horrified to kill its own grub. We've become so removed from the reality of obtaining our food supply that almost no one knows how to wring—or would dare to wring—a chicken's neck. If I'm going to eat something, I much prefer to kill it myself. I hunt elk and deer with a bow and arrow, I fish with hooks, and I take birds with a shotgun, then wring their necks if the shot didn't finish them off. This may sound gruesome, but I can face the consequences of my need to eat. I limit my kills to what is sustainable and sound for animal populations, and I participate in efforts to protect wilderness and open lands. It may seem like my lifestyle is a holdover from the past, but to me it is a good plan for the future.

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