I am reading Michael Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals (2006), and it is most thought provoking and often quite entertaining. At one point, this suburban Jewish boy decides to become a hunter so that he truly understand the sensation of killing his own meat (after a quite interesting refutation of animal rights theory by an otherwise pretty left sort). He has been led into hunting by a couple of people he knows from the San Francisco Bay Area, both of them immigrants to America from traditional European cultures. He explains that his first attempt at wild pig hunting, in north Sonoma County, was not successful, because of too good a lunch:
Being Europeans, as well as accomplished cooks, Angelo and Jean-Pierre take lunch very seriously, even when out in the woods some distance from civilization. "So I brought with me a few little things to nibble on," Jean-Pierre mumbled. "Me, too," chimed Angelo. And out of their packs came course after course of the most astonishing picnic, which they proceeded to layout on the hood of Angelo's SUV: a terrine of lobster and halibut en gelee, artisanal salami and prosciutto and mortadella, Angelo's homemade pate of boar and home-cured olives, cornichons, chicken salad, a generous selection of cheeses and breads, fresh strawberries and pastries, silverware and napkins, and, naturally, a bottle each of red and white wine.
This reminds me too much of the PBS program on Marie Antoinette that I was watching last night. Louis and Marie were in flight toward Austria in a too-conspicuous newly built carriage with [from memory] "a rack for the king's favorite wines, a silver dinner service, and a leather-lidded chamberpot."
ReplyDeleteI've read the book as well, and actually quite like it.
ReplyDeleteThe hunting story there is no different than half the best fishing stories.
It is a poor man indeed who believes the purpose of fishing, is to catch fish.