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.)


	(photo by Mark Hooper)

JUDGING BY THE FACT that I can barely close my freezer door, the collection process is going well. I have a big ol' brown trout stuffed in there. I caught the fish in the Madison River, and I was going to keep it alive in the crayfish tank. Escoffier's truite au bleu requires that trout be "procured in mountainous districts, where the clear water they inhabit is constantly refreshed by strong currents." He also requires that you toss a stunned trout into boiling bouillon. I wanted to follow his advice, but I couldn't bear to see the fish endure captivity. I thumped him on the head with a board and froze him.

Meanwhile, the pigeons living in the back room still haven't produced squab. While I'm waiting for their libidos to kick in, I have plenty of time to gather other stuff. Like rabbit, which remains a very popular dish in France. We have three types of wild rabbit in Montana, all of which are so plentiful (and ignored by hunters) that there is no bag limit and no closed season. Escoffier was baffled by America's disinterest in eating its rabbits and hares. "As a result of one of those freaks of taste," he complained, "hare is not nearly so highly esteemed as it deserves in the United States."

My brother Matt agrees to join me on a rabbit expedition. We leave Missoula on a Friday afternoon, driving east. Over the next three days, we travel a 1,273-mile loop through the Great Plains, making a stop near Jordan, Montana, to kill eight cottontails and four jackrabbits in a rancher's junk pile with a .22 rifle.

When I get home, I'm greeted by Tom the Gangsta. His phone service has been shut off. "Can I use yours?" he asks.

Tom's acting jumpy. In an effort to raise money, he needs to make a series of phone calls to sell two items, the identities of which seem to be a secret. Between calls, I make my move: "Do you mind if I catch those pigeons on the roof up there?"

"You can chop those pigeons up, far as I'm concerned," he says.

Around midnight, Moisan and I are on the roof with a device fashioned from a chaise lounge, duct tape, a hammock, fly-rod cases, cord, and the plastic zip strips cops use for handcuffs during drug busts. We snicker with confidence as we crawl along the crest of the roof, but only manage to catch one. After a few days, the pigeon hasn't produced any eggs. I'm getting tired of cleaning the crayfish tank and vacuuming pigeon feathers dropped by unproductive birds, so I set a date for the feast a couple of weeks away. Squab or no squab.

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