The Farmplate Blog

FarmPlate Book Review | "Afield: A Chef's Guide to Preparing and Cooking Wild Game and Fish"

Sarah Hebbel-Stone Sep 12, 2012 Good Reads 1 comments

Afield is not your average cookbook.

Then again, Jesse Griffiths is not your average cook. He is the chef and co-owner of Dai Due, an Austin supper club/roving butcher shop/hunting school that is known for its dedication to local, seasonal ingredients. Afield: A Chef's Guide to Preparing and Cooking Wild Game and Fish follows Griffiths on his hunting and fishing trips where he explains how to field dress and butcher game, following it up with delicious and simple seasonal recipes--many best cooked over a campfire. Beautiful photography by Jody Horton accompanies every how-to and meal.

The foreword was written by Andrew Zimmern, host of the Travel Channel's "Bizarre Foods." But maybe these are foods that shouldn't be so bizarre to today's eaters. Not too long ago we had to hunt and fish for our food, and these skills were common and imperative to living -- and we were better off for it.

"Jesse leads by example," writes Zimmern. "We can talk all we want about sustainability, traditional food arts, great cooking, locally sourced foods, and every other neutered catch phrase of the modern food world, but we need heroes who are willing to show us by doing."

"Slowing down the food systems we sped up, solving our food-health issues, and preserving the best practices of our lost generations are all attainable by living the hunting-cooking lifestyle. At the end of the day, this is an inspiring collection of stories from the field, replete with 85 recipes that are as delicious as they are fascinating to page through."

Afield will inspire you to do -- to roll up your sleeves and catch a flounder, clean a rabbit, field dress a feral hog, butcher a deer, cook up a squirrel, and make your own sausage -- all in the name of a good meal.

We highly recommend that you buy this beautiful book from Welcome Books or Amazon.