Sportsman Channel Host, Acclaimed Author Steven Rinella Releases New Book “MEAT EATER”
OutdoorHub 09.05.12
Sportsman Channel TV host and acclaimed author Steven Rinella has published his latest book giving his passionate and loyal fan base another adventure with America’s foremost explorer, hunter and meat eater. MEAT EATER: Adventures from the Life of an American Hunter (Spiegel & Grau Hardcover, on sale Sept. 4) is an exploration of humanity’s oldest pursuit and its relevance today through the lens of ten hunts, beginning at age ten when he was entranced by stories of the American wilderness (especially the exploits of his hero Daniel Boone) and ending as a husband and father with a freezer full of game meat in his Brooklyn apartment. Readers accompany him as he attempts to eke out a living as a fur trapper in the late 1980s; to Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula in search of the challenging-to-capture but nearly-inedible bonefish during a flirtation with catch-and-release fishing; on a canoeing trip in the Missouri Breaks in search of mule deer; and on a hunt for the elusive Dall sheep in the glaciated mountains of Alaska.
Throughout the chronicle of Rinella’s lifelong relationship with nature and hunting, he grapples with themes such as the role of the hunter in shaping America, the vanishing frontier and the importance of conservation, the ethics of killing, the responsibilities that human predators have to their prey, and the near-disappearance of the hunter himself. Rinella argues that assuming responsibility for acquiring the meat that we eat—rather than entrusting it to proxy executioners, processors, packagers, and distributors—is one of the most respectful and exhilarating things a meat eater can do.
As the host of the television show MeatEater on the Sportsman Channel and the former host of the Travel Channel’s James Beard Award-nominated show The Wild Within, Rinella has had the rare opportunity to hunt around the world for most days of the year. The upshot of his extensive travel, coupled with thirty-plus years of hunting and fishing with his father and brothers, is an intimate knowledge of animals—how they move and how you should move around them, the sounds and smells they react to, how they are best broken down and transported back to camp after they are killed, and even why their fat tastes the way it does. Rinella shares his hard-won insights in his stories and, after each chapter, presents “Tasting Notes” on how to prepare, cook and eat wild game, both at home and over a campfire.
“While Steven Rinella has taken more than a few trophies along the way, his excursions into the great outdoors have mainly been about feasting on wild game at the conclusion of each hunt—and he’s eager to share. Relentlessly descriptive and endlessly evocative ‘tasting guides’ at the close of each chapter help armchair hunters get a sense of what it might be like digging into their own heaping plate of camp meat, deer hearts or sun-dried jerky…the writing is steadfastly satisfying and clear…The author wisely allows philosophical questions pertaining to the validity of hunting and the efficacy of state-enforced regulations to simmer in the background, and he effectively shows nature in all its glory. An insider’s look at hunting that devotees and nonparticipants alike should find fascinating.” —Kirkus Reviews
“Chances are Steven Rinella’s life is very different than yours or mine. He does not source his food at the local supermarket. Meat Eater is a unique and valuable alternate view of where our food comes from—and what can be involved. It’s a look both backward, at the way things used to be—and forward—to a time when every diner truly understands what’s on the end of the fork.” —Anthony Bourdain
About the Author: Steven Rinella is the author of American Buffalo: In Search of a Lost Icon, which was the winner of the Sigurd Olson Nature Writing Award, and The Scavenger’s Guide to Haute Cuisine. He is the host of the television show MeatEater on the Sportsman Channel, and was the host of the Travel Channel’s The Wild Within, which was nominated for a James Beard Award. He has a MFA in creative writing from the University of Montana and his writing has appeared in publications as Outside, Field and Stream, New Yorker, New York Times, Vogue, Men’s Journal, Glamour and Salon. Born and raised in Michigan, he currently lives in Brooklyn, New York.
