Hunting Chefs

Abstract

Pascual Soler focuses on recent food autobiographies written by chefs Randy King (Chef in the Wild 2015), Steven Rinella (The Scavenger’s Guide to Haute Cuisine 2006) and Hank Shaw (Hunt, Gather, Cook 2011). The chapter offers a reading that links their life narratives to the tropes and themes of the nineteenth-century hunting autobiography, connecting them to the founding mythology of the USA and the West. It focuses on how the introduction of cooking has altered the historically masculine discourse of the hunter and how hunting masculinity is now being constructed in the domestic kitchen. “Hunting Chefs” concludes by drawing attention to the ways hunters support the contemporary culinary values of local food procurement, ethical treatment of animals and environmental sustainability.