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.)

FOR THE NEXT 14 DAYS, my kitchen chores are accompanied by the olfactory backdrop of death and liquor. I have 15 different species of critters in various stages of preparation. The mincemeat pie filling—a medley of ground meats, fruits, and spices—is soaking in brandy and rum. I've given the cottontail a long bath in Madeira and brandy. The day arrives when I take a couple pigeons outside and give their necks a quick, sharp twist. The turtle, which I slaughtered two months ago by severing its head with an ax, has to be thawed and parboiled. The boiling carcass smells like the Loch Ness Monster. Diana comes over and paces around my apartment with a T-shirt squashed against her nose. She says, "Oh. My. God. Steve," and leaves. I cook the swallow nests and am dismayed to find nothing in the pot but muddy water and a bug.

I get so involved in the painstaking process of reducing the venison stock that I begin a sort of involuntary fast, as though my body is preparing for the meal. I understand how hunter-gatherers must feel during the painful spells of hard times. Nowadays, we eat to celebrate an occasion; we used to celebrate the occasion of being able to eat.

It's the designated night, a Wednesday, and I've invited 12 friends, ranging in age from early twenties to late fifties, to gather for the feast. While I consider all the participants to be like-minded, our eating habits are varied. Deirdre's a discriminating food lover. Ben and Caroline, two abstract painters, are thrill seekers. Fred seldom cooks, but he can taste most any dish and list the ingredients. Aryn, Jen, and Diana have all flirted with vegetarianism, but they've agreed to sample tonight's offerings. Julian's a diehard glutton. Anna and Derek are into anything they haven't already tried, and eating hard-boiled pigeon eggs is one of those things. The two Matts want to taste the fruits of their labor.

Escoffier helped popularize service à la russe, which means to serve the dishes one at a time. I start with the matelote. It's made with yellow perch, mountain whitefish, trout, and northern pike cooked in white wine and fish stock. Since I killed and froze my trout, I added it to the matelote instead of making the truite au bleu as planned. I produced the fish stock by simmering some smelt that a buddy from Michigan mailed me. Escoffier's matelote calls for a crayfish garnish, so I dumped the contents of my freshwater aquarium into a pot of boiling water. The matelote receives universal praise and quickly vanishes.

I try to replicate my early success by bringing out the abattis à la bourguignonne: giblets of duck, pigeon, and grouse cooked in a red-wine sauce. Diana sits on the couch and makes no move for the plate. "I'm saving myself for the fried smelt," she announces. Julian takes one bite, says, "Oh. Chewy," then eats another dozen pieces. Interest in the giblets fades before they're even close to gone. Eager for another triumph, I bust out the deer-, elk-, antelope-, and bear-filled mincemeat pies, which went in the oven smelling like a distillery and emerged with a sweet and provocative bouquet. Most everyone bites into the pie with hesitation, followed by excitement. Ben jams a couple slices in his mouth and declares it to be one of the strangest tastes he's ever encountered. I follow the pie with a small tray of smoked goose.

Next comes the pigeon pie. "I like the logic of eating pigeons, because they so blatantly take advantage of us," says Fred. But he passes on the dish, maybe because I cooped a couple of the birds in his dog's kennel for a night. Everyone else partakes and likes it. The rabbit à la flamande comes off the burner with a stewed sweet-and-sour taste. Aside from the matelote, it's the biggest hit of the night. My veggie-leaning friends clean a small pile of the leg bones down to museum-exhibit specifications. Deirdre polishes off a rabbit loin.

All the while, the deboned turtle has been cooking in cream. I try to temper the sea-monster aroma with Madeira and brandy, to no avail. I announce that the turtle is for connoisseurs only. This warning, along with the odor, keeps the takers down to three individuals. "It has such a strange smell," says Caroline. "I wanted to see if it really tasted like it smelled."

"Does it?" I ask.

"Worse, actually."

When my brother and I taste it, we agree to save the soup for some day when we're extremely hungry. I pull out my ducks, fillet the breasts, squish the carcasses over a bowl, wash them in wine, then dribble all the juices and wine back over the seasoned, sliced meat. It's one of the best dishes I've ever eaten. My guests agree. By about midnight, the food's all gone and we're all in a food-and-wine coma, lounging around the living room.

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