The Ultimate Man's Take On Love

Despite what they claim, not many guys would actually kill for a woman. Steven Rinella will. He’s a hunter, a fisherman, a Montana-bred man of the wild. An Interview.

Despite what they claim, not many guys would actually kill for a woman. Steven Rinella will. He’s a hunter, a fisherman, a Montana-bred man of the wild. He cooks. He writes. He makes hearts beat a little faster. And for his debut book, The Scavenger's Guide to Haute Cuisine, he sets out to recreate 45 dishes from Auguste Escoffier's 1903 classic, Le Guide Culinare—with a twist. Traveling from Alaska to Florida, the 31-year old Rinella captured all his own ingredients (stingrays, pigeons, snapping turtles), while somehow managing to hold on to a vegetarian girlfriend.

Why do you think people equate food and sex? For instance, you call Le Guide Culinaire the Kama Sutra of food.
Well, the Kama Sutra is a comprehensive exploration of all the different things two bodies could do. Escoffier brought that thoroughness to the culinary arts. Generally, I think people equate sex and food because they're both finite. A lot of effort and thought goes into something very fleeting. There's also this sense when you eat something that you shouldn't: "It was so good, but I shouldn't have done it." That feeling surrounds the sexual realm for people. And food is a physical creation; it's organic and it's captivating on all these different levels—taste, smell, feel. So in that way, it's also like sex. Escoffier had all of these ideas about aphrodisiacs, food that was visceral, decadent, and rich. Truffles, for one. And different organ meats. Can you imagine? "I'm going to get so-and-so really hot tonight. I'm going to fill her up with a heart, some big mushrooms, and oysters."

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