Eating What You Kill This Thanksgiving

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Daily – "Eating What You Kill This Thanksgiving"

Date: November 27, 2025
Host: Michael Barbaro
Guest: Steven Rinella ("MeatEater")
Location: Bozeman, Montana

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Overview

In this poignant Thanksgiving Day episode, host Michael Barbaro ventures out of his urban comfort zone to join famed hunter, author, and conservationist Steven Rinella in Montana. The episode explores the philosophy, ethics, and practical experience of hunting and consuming wild game, offering listeners a deeply personal window into a lifestyle far removed from supermarket shopping. The episode moves from reflections on the history and meaning of hunting, to a vivid on-the-ground duck hunt, and finally, a communal meal prepared from the day's harvest.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Origins and Philosophy of Hunting

• Steven Rinella’s Background:

  • Grew up in rural Michigan in a family with deep hunting roots stemming from his father's post-WWII experiences.

    “My dad was raised by Italian immigrant grandparents ... he fought in World War II ... when they came home, that's just what they did.” (06:34)

  • From childhood, hunting was not a choice but a way of life—practiced, not questioned.
  • Early reading inspired a fascination with the history and ethos of hunting:

    "I would check [hunting books] out at the library, and then I'd recheck it out ... If you went to that book now and found that in the Twin Lake Library, it’d be just my name again and again." (10:17)

• Integration with Conservation:

  • As a teen, conflated environmentalism with animal rights activism, viewing both as threats to hunting.
  • Came to realize, through exposure to wildlife management and conservation texts like Aldo Leopold's Sand County Almanac, that hunters are integral stewards of the land.

    "[Leopold] introduces this idea ... that the days of us being conquerors and destroyers had to end.” (15:12)
    "We're going to interact ... are we going to do this in a way that strengthens the integrity of these natural systems or ... destroys these systems?" (15:57)

2. The Emotional Experience of Hunting

• Ethics and the "Gift of Life":

  • Barbaro reads a passage from Rinella’s book describing the intense, evolutionary focus and existential meaning experienced in the act of hunting.

    "In that moment of impending violence and death, you are gifted a beautiful glimpse of life." (19:52, Barbaro quoting Rinella)

  • Rinella discusses how, especially when hunting as an adult for the first time, this is often a cathartic and emotional moment—even bringing tears.

    "It's cathartic. People cry ... Something is clicking with them about cycles of life and death." (20:20)

  • Hunting seen not as violence but as a cycle, deeply connected to human ancestry and survival instincts.

• Contrast with Modern Food Systems:

  • Rinella argues that humans are disconnected from death and life cycles in industrial food systems.

    "Would you rather ... live the life of something born on a slab of concrete ... or ... be unaware, then one day just—pow, lights out in the woods?" (23:00) "That wild life is more beautiful and that wildlife is better." (24:06)

  • There is a "virtue" in consuming wild animals that lived freely, as opposed to those from industrial farms.

    "There's virtue in consuming an animal that has lived a rich and full and varied life on their own terms." (24:19)

3. Hunting as Civilization and Identity

• Human History:

  • Barbaro: "To abhor hunting is to hate the place of which you came, which is akin to hating yourself in some distant, abstract way." (25:15)
  • Rinella: Humanity is fundamentally hunting-centric for most of its existence, only recently moving away from hunting as a necessity.

    "If you brought someone from outer space ... the outer space person would look and be like, man, they're mostly hunters. Well, not lately. Right?" (25:26)

  • The decline of hunting is tied to population growth, agriculture, and changing landscapes.

    “If every American tomorrow went out and killed a deer, it'd be a real problem ... It became impossible.” (27:03)

• Misconceptions about Hunters’ Role in Conservation:

  • Purchase of hunting licenses funds conservation.

    "By buying my hunting licenses and participating in things I participated in—we saved American wildlife." (28:12)

  • Hunters feel misunderstood, deserving greater recognition for their stewardship.

4. The Duck Hunt: Experiencing the Harvest Firsthand

• Pre-dawn Preparation:
  • Barbaro, Rinella, and crew set out at 5AM to Mark Pierce’s managed wetlands for a duck hunt, reflecting on anticipation and tradition.

    "There's always an anticipation of what's going to happen ... It's like asking a question, you know, waiting for the answer." (35:44)

• Technical Aspects:
  • Steve and Max Bardow set up decoys, explain regulations (e.g., gun plug limits), and prepare the hunting blind.
• Camaraderie and the Act of Hunting:
  • The first legal duck is shot as dawn breaks, followed by a morning of collective focus, patience, and shared jokes.

    "[Holding a freshly-shot duck] I feel connected to this thing. ... I feel connected to it in a way that's kind of hard to explain." (46:19, Barbaro) "It's beautiful, it's sad ... I just feel connected to this thing." (46:24)

5. Processing and Eating the Harvest

• Butchering and Cooking:

  • Rinella walks Barbaro through the process of plucking, cleaning, and cooking the ducks, with family participation.

    "You're the only person ever touched it. No one's ever touched that except us." (57:21)

  • Various wild game dishes are prepared, including black bear, wild turkey, Canadian goose, and freshly-duck, explaining each step and flavor.

    "Tastes like lamb or beef ... you never flag it as unusual." (56:20, on black bear)

• The Meal:

  • The communal table is described as “a remarkable bounty,” light on veggies but heavy on meaning and accomplishment.

    "It's extremely gratifying to consume food that you yourself have participated in." (56:50, Barbaro)

• Reflections:

  • Barbaro expresses newfound intimacy and gratitude for food hunted, butchered, and eaten in a full-cycle experience.

    "It's like I feel a certain level of possessiveness over this food I don't think I've ever felt before. It's not anonymous.” (57:28, Barbaro)

  • Rinella: “You get really weird or weird to your family about it and everything. There's a thing that happens.” (57:41)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the Link Between Hunting and Conservation:

  "Elder Leopold was speaking to the people that are going to interact with the systems. He introduced people to the idea of ecology, that natural systems rely on all of their parts." – Steven Rinella (15:57)

• On the Emotional Weight of Hunting:

  "Almost to the person, it's cathartic. People cry. ... Something is clicking with them about cycles of life and death." – Steven Rinella (20:20)

• On the Morality of Wild vs. Industrial Meat:

  "That wild life is more beautiful and that wildlife is better." – Steven Rinella (24:06)

• On Human Identity and Hunting:

  "If you brought someone from outer space ... [they’d say] man, they're mostly hunters. Well, not lately. Right?" – Steven Rinella (25:26)

• On Consuming Your Own Harvest:

  "You're the only person ever touched it. ... No one's ever touched that except us." – Steven Rinella (57:21)
  "It's like I feel a certain level of possessiveness over this food I don't think I've ever felt before." – Michael Barbaro (57:28)

• On the Experience of the Hunt:

  "Every cast, like you're asking a question, you know, waiting for the answer." – Steven Rinella (35:44)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• Steven Rinella’s Early Life and Hunting Origins
  05:31 – 06:54

• Hunting, Conservation, and Philosophy
  10:09 – 17:21

• Morality, Remorse, and the Meaning of Hunting
  19:52 – 24:43

• Critique of Modern Meat Consumption
  23:00 – 24:43

• Hunting’s Decline and Human History
  25:15 – 28:12

• Duck Hunting—Preparation and Philosophy
  34:04 – 41:32

• In the Blind: The Hunt Unfolds
  41:32 – 47:37

• Processing and Cooking the Ducks
  49:15 – 53:15

• Meal and Final Reflections
  55:24 – 57:41

• Conclusion and Thanks
  57:52 – 58:08

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Tone & Atmosphere

The episode is warm, contemplative, and unexpectedly emotional. Michael Barbaro brings an open curiosity, often humble and a bit hesitant about the hunting world. Steven Rinella is thoughtful, unpretentious, and evangelical in his love for hunting, but always rooted in respect for the animals and the land. The camaraderie of the hunt, the messiness of plucking birds, and the satisfaction of a meal hard-won give the episode a quietly profound and grateful tone—fitting for Thanksgiving.

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Takeaway

For those unfamiliar with hunting, this episode serves as a thoughtful introduction to the ethics, complexities, and satisfactions of truly "eating what you kill"—and a reminder of the often-invisible origins of the food on our table. The conversation challenges stereotypes of hunters, reframes hunting as an act of stewardship and gratitude, and offers listeners the vicarious experience of being physically and emotionally present in the journey from field to fork.

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Happy Thanksgiving.

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(All quotes and timestamps are provided in MM:SS format, reflecting key moments and original language as heard on the episode.)

Transcript

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[Michael Barbaro]

Okay, you ready? 5, 9, dash dollar B pound. Oh, sorry. Hashtag.

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[Michael Barbaro]

Do you just want me to run through the different sounds? Okay, so, yeah, a simple quack is just. And then a lot of times this morning, to grab those ducks attention, I was doing five to seven quacks in a row. So, yeah, it's just like music. You're one with the duck. I try to be. I try my best. When most of us sit down today for Thanksgiving dinner, if we're being honest, we're not really thinking all that hard about where the food on the table actually came from. It came from the grocery store. And to the degree that we did think about where it came from, maybe we shopped the local free range organic aisle. Still, it came from the supermarket. But for Steven Ranella, the question of where his food comes from is almost a religion. Renella is a lifelong hunter, perhaps the country's most famous hunter, who shares his passion for eating what he catches through a growing media empire that includes a Netflix show and a podcast, both called Meat Eater.

[Steven Rinella]

If you're just by yourself and you kill a moose in September. Yeah. How long can one guy live off that moose? You know, if that's all you're eating? You know, probably three months.

[Michael Barbaro]

He's also written more than a dozen books, ranging from a history of the American buffalo to a series of cookbooks that explain things like how to gut a caribou or make a wild goose pastrami. But what really defines Rinella's work is an argument, and an argument that some might find kind of counterintuitive that killing animals can be part of loving nature, that reverence for the natural world is intimately bound up in the act of hunting. And so I was curious, as somebody who relies exclusively on the grocery store, what would it be like to visit Rinella and go on a hunt with him and then eat what we kill? From the new york times, I'm michael barbaro. This is the daily today. We're my hunt with steven rinella. It's Thursday, november 27th, thanksgiving day. Steve, Michael Barbaro.

[Steven Rinella]

Michael, nice to meet you.

[Michael Barbaro]

Tremendous honor. We meet Rinella at the meat eater headquarters in Bozeman, Montana.

[Steven Rinella]

Yeah. I'll show you around a little bit.

[Michael Barbaro]

He gives us a little tour.

[Steven Rinella]

We have a. The kitchen space.

[Michael Barbaro]

We see his test kitchen. Oh, that's a giant meat grinder.

[Steven Rinella]

Wow.

[Michael Barbaro]

His industrial sized meat freezer.

[Steven Rinella]

This is like Giannis's elk bones on the way.

[Michael Barbaro]

Should we go to the studio? Into his podcast studio, which I would describe the decor of as extremely carnivorous.

[Steven Rinella]

This is a beaver behind you. Yeah. This is like what the whole country was built on. I mean, like that. The beaver skin trademark. Um, that's a muskox hide.

[Michael Barbaro]

That's huge.

[Steven Rinella]

Yeah, it's a sound deadener. These are. These are tan skunks. Okay. A thing I've always been. I pay a lot of attention to the fur trade. This right now is the hot ticket item in the fur trade.

[Michael Barbaro]

Skunk.

[Steven Rinella]

Yeah. You know why?

[Michael Barbaro]

No. The.

[Steven Rinella]

The hats that Orthodox Jews wear for. For. For holidays.

[Michael Barbaro]

Yes. They're very extravagant. They're beautiful.

[Steven Rinella]

The hip thing right now, the hip thing is to have those white. To have them made from those white skunk hairs.

[Michael Barbaro]

I think of the Orthodox community as being kind of trend proof, but no, they're not.

[Steven Rinella]

There's a trend. It's hot.

[Michael Barbaro]

Okay. So thank you for the tour. Thank you for having us.

[Steven Rinella]

Of course. Thank you. I appreciate you coming in, especially coming all this way to come to me.

[Michael Barbaro]

So you have had a really interesting journey, in my estimation, to become the person that you are now. You're kind of an evangelist for hunting, champion of hunting. As a way.

[Steven Rinella]

I'm like an explainer of.

[Michael Barbaro]

Yeah, okay.

[Steven Rinella]

Yeah. Explainer of.

[Michael Barbaro]

Champion of it. As a way of connecting with the land, showing reverence for the land, and as you've put it, understanding the connection between human beings and the natural world. You grew up in rural Michigan.

[Steven Rinella]

That's right.

[Michael Barbaro]

Talk to me a little bit about some of these formative early hunting experiences.

[Steven Rinella]

That you have to do that. Right. I got to go back one little generational bit. My dad was born a long time ago. Like, he fought in World War II. Okay. So my dad was raised by Italian immigrant grandparents. He was born in the south side of Chicago. He grew up in a world very, very removed from rural American life. But then when he got home from World War II, and this is a thing that he was one of those outdoorsmen that kind of was born of that experience. They had been out, you know, for over a year. You'd been out camping out, hanging out with guys wearing wool clothes, and he was they just got into it. Then when they came home, that's just what they did. There was even a comment a guy editor of a sporting magazine had made is like, how could you, how could you train an entire generation of men to, to shoot and camp and not expect them to become hunters? So he became a hunter, like out of that world.

[Michael Barbaro]

I never thought about that.

[Steven Rinella]

Yeah, like, so I got it from him. Like, I never decided. I never thought, oh, I should become a hunter and fisherman. It was just what we did. I did all the, like, I had all the normal stuff. I had friends, I liked music. Alongside it all was like this, this like obsession, a family obsession with hunting and fishing.

[Michael Barbaro]

Do you remember an early experience of hunting that stays with you?

[Steven Rinella]

Yeah. We would strike out on bikes to 22s and go hunt squirrels. But we had so much woods around and we thought it was like public, but it was just that we just went on everybody, everybody's land.

[Michael Barbaro]

Why hunt a squirrel?

[Steven Rinella]

Oh, they're great.

[Michael Barbaro]

There's not that much meat.

[Steven Rinella]

No, there's a lot.

[Michael Barbaro]

There is.

[Steven Rinella]

Yeah, there's a lot.

[Michael Barbaro]

And what do you do with it?

[Steven Rinella]

Oh, it's, it's, it's like it's thinking man's chicken, man. It's like, it's, it's the same color. My mom would. There was a real wild game craze back then. It was like the whole era was like the cream of mushroom era. So my mom would take a crock pot and fill it full of parted out squirrels. So two front legs, two back legs, and we trimmed the saddle. You'd call it the saddle. It'd be like the loin pieces. You'd like take a scissor and run it up the ribs. And so you got like the French call it a saddle of a hare, right. And you put it in a crock pot, fill it with cream of mushroom soup, and then turn that crock pot on. And then the minute you could pick all the meat off, you'd pick all.

[Michael Barbaro]

The meat off, thinking man's chicken.

[Steven Rinella]

If you enjoy food and you don't have a set rigid idea of whatever, you kind of like, like meat's supposed to be like this. If you just kind of like, like food and like novel things. Most people that do that, like squirrels, they're very good.

[Michael Barbaro]

I had no idea.

[Steven Rinella]

Yeah.

[Michael Barbaro]

At this stage of your life, are you eating everything you hunt?

[Steven Rinella]

Yeah, we ate a lot of stuff. We fried a lot of stuff. Yeah. You wouldn't have thrown. That would not be a thing. Like not a thing to Hunt and not consume. I remember.

[Michael Barbaro]

Would it be a sin?

[Steven Rinella]

Yeah, sin. Like, you know, I was raised in a Christian household. We wouldn't have talked about waste in terms of sin. But I remember one time in the woods, I remember my old man finding someone had dumped a bunch of wood ducks that they hadn't cleaned properly in this.

[Michael Barbaro]

That they had hunted but not cleaned.

[Steven Rinella]

Yep. Garbage bag. It was where everybody would haul their yard waste. And I remember my old man finding a garbage bag that had a bunch of improperly clean wood ducks. And it was this dude renting a house down the lake from us. I remember my wet. My dad went. Banged on his door and had words with him. It was like.

[Michael Barbaro]

Well, just.

[Steven Rinella]

He.

[Michael Barbaro]

He would have seen that as so problematic.

[Steven Rinella]

Why wasteful? Like, that was the thing. I. I was trying to explain everything.

[Michael Barbaro]

These animals lived and died for nothing. If no one was gonna.

[Steven Rinella]

It was like, you didn't waste stuff, man.

[Michael Barbaro]

After being immersed in this environment, did you just say to yourself, I want to grow up and be a hunter?

[Steven Rinella]

Oh, yeah. Well, no, because I just was. I never thought. I never thought about it. I never stopped for a minute and then restarted.

[Michael Barbaro]

You just were a hunter.

[Steven Rinella]

It just like, was never like, I want to get into this. It was just. That was just the main thing. Always the main thing.

[Michael Barbaro]

Was it like the most romantic thing a kid could possibly be doing? I mean, you've explained that it's just kind of a default fact of life for you. But it sounds like it, even at a young age, is bringing you tremendous pleasure.

[Steven Rinella]

Yeah. Identity became like an identity. And then I felt the thing, too, is through that I. I fell in love with the history of it.

[Michael Barbaro]

And how did you know the history of it? Like, you're reading.

[Steven Rinella]

That's what I got into. Like, I would just. I would read. That's what I would read. That's the main thing I would read.

[Michael Barbaro]

What was the seminal childhood book of.

[Steven Rinella]

Hunting Trap Lines North. I would check it out at the library, and then I'd recheck it out, and I'd recheck it out. If you went to that book now and found that in the Twin Lake Library, it. Dude, if you went. It'd be just my name again and again, like on that book.

[Michael Barbaro]

Just what. What stands out from that book?

[Steven Rinella]

It's like.

[Michael Barbaro]

And just. Just briefly describe it.

[Steven Rinella]

Okay, I. Again, all that hunting and stuff, what I wanted to do was I wanted, like, hunt and trap for a living. So, like, you know, people know all these names. Daniel Boone, for instance. Like, people think of Boone as an explorer, a pioneer, like he wouldn't have thought of himself that way. Boone was a market hunter. Boone hunted for the markets. He trapped beaver, he trapped otter. He trapped. He hunted bears for the bear grease market, bear oil, bear bacon, market deerskin trade. Like that's what Boone did. Like Boone did that for a living. All the things he's known for came out of the fact that that's what he did for a living. So as I got into it, I would just read about people that that's what they would do and that would generally force you backward in time. So I just read about trappers, I read about hunters, commercial hunters, professional hunters, because that's what I wanted to be.

[Michael Barbaro]

So my understanding is that even as you're aspiring to the hunting life, you see that life early on as at odds with the whole idea of environmentalism and conservation.

[Steven Rinella]

At that time, being in high school, I confused the environmental movement with the animal rights movement.

[Michael Barbaro]

Which upset you because.

[Steven Rinella]

Well, it upset me because the, the, the animal rights movement was at that time working very aggressively to ban hunting practices. And they were having success at it.

[Michael Barbaro]

You thought they were the enemy.

[Steven Rinella]

Yeah, 100%.

[Michael Barbaro]

Because they were going to prevent you.

[Steven Rinella]

They were going to destroy our lifestyle from hunting. The environmentalists were going to destroy our lifestyle as a 17 year old. Right. We started a group. You started, our group was Hate Hunters against Teenage Environmentalists. And we even like won the Can.

[Michael Barbaro]

Drive Hunters against teenage Environment.

[Steven Rinella]

I'll show you the shirt. I still have the shirt. I somehow. Because you couldn't Google stuff. I guess I somehow got it. My buddies and I got it. Whatever. We got it. That it was that that was the environmental movement, was the animal rights movement. We conflated them. But same time I remember there's this big woods. We always would hunt. They were going to go in and log this woods and these guys came in and marked all the wildlife trees with an orange ring. I remember me and my brother Danny sitting there matching paint. Like, I'm not kidding you. Matching paint to get that color and then putting it in a sprayer and going out and marking shitloads of extra trees.

[Michael Barbaro]

Why?

[Steven Rinella]

Cause we didn't want them to cut the trees down. But we're like, we're gonna save the trees. But we hate environment. We didn't know what we were talking about. We were just idiots.

[Michael Barbaro]

You obviously get to a place where you feel that hunting and environmentalism, hunting and conservationism are actually really wedded. Tell me that story, how it is, how you go from a kid Wearing the hate T shirts to suddenly seeing that hunting is environmentalism, which is ultimately where you land. So what is it that happens?

[Steven Rinella]

Probably the mo. The most impactful thing that happened. Well, a handful of things. The buddies I grew up around. Okay, guys that would have laughed at hate. We kind of didn't know what you could do for a living. So a lot of the people in my circle were like, I'm going to be a wildlife biologist, because then you could be outside. Or I'm going to be a game warden. So they start going into wildlife and fisheries management and imagine like the, the. The awakening, and you all of a sudden start understanding ecology.

[Michael Barbaro]

Right.

[Steven Rinella]

And, and, and then like conservation history. Out of that. One of my peers that goes into wildlife management, like, introduced me, for instance, to Aldo Leopold's the Sand County Almanac, which is probably. Which. Not probably, which is the most influen conservation environmental text.

[Michael Barbaro]

That's kind of a cornerstone of the movement.

[Steven Rinella]

Why it's the most influential is because it was written for rednecks, like what we were. It was written by a guy who knew what it was to chop a tree down, who knew what it was to raise a crop, who knew what it was to hunt deer, who knew what it was to kill something and then regret killing it. Like, he was talking to his people and he was saying, there's a thing, it's ecology. We need to know about it. Like, it's our history. We're. No one's going to save this but us. No one understands it and loves it like us. So it was like.

[Michael Barbaro]

So he assigns a special place to the hunter.

[Steven Rinella]

Yes.

[Michael Barbaro]

This role of stewarding the land.

[Steven Rinella]

Yeah. For many, many people. And this is an old book by this time, he introduces this idea of the hunter conservationists, and he introduces this idea that's like the days of us being conquerors and destroyers had to end. Right. It had to end.

[Michael Barbaro]

Right. Like Daniel Boone is known, and you've written about this as somebody who may not have meant to, but ends up laying waste to entire.

[Steven Rinella]

He killed what he loved species. He killed what he loved. And he would have told you the same thing. That's why he always had to go more and more west. He had to go more and more west to get out of the areas that him and his peers had decimated.

[Michael Barbaro]

And Leopold is saying, no, we'd always.

[Steven Rinella]

Had in this country, like, you have like, a preservation mindset, as exemplified by a guy named John Muir. Like, John Muir would look at a beautiful landscape and he'd say, no one should touch this, you can look at it for a minute, but don't touch it. Humans are evil. Preserve it. Rose. Theodore Roosevelt, Aldo Leopold presented a conservation viewpoint that would be that man is going to engage with the natural world. We are going to be part of the natural world. We have to be. Are we going to do this in a way that strengthens the integrity of these natural systems where we're going to interact, or are we going to interact in a way that destroys these systems? Elder Leopold was speaking to the people that are going to interact with the systems. He introduced people to the idea of ecology, that natural systems rely on all of their parts. Right. He was like, it's time for us to treat this as a thing we love or else we're gonna lose it. And so reading that it was, you identify with it 100%, man. Cause he like understood people that were out on the land. Like reading this book hit like a. I didn't even appreciate it till way later in life, like how much that hit because I understood what he was talking about. And then I read many books of people that were very uneas with hunting. Like Barry Lopez. Arctic Dreams had a huge impact on me. Barry Lopez very uneasy with hunting.

[Michael Barbaro]

Why?

[Steven Rinella]

Obvious. Because you're taking life. You're taking life. He's like a Zen Buddhist. You're taking life.

[Michael Barbaro]

That brings me to what you become at this stage of your life. You're in college, right? After college you get an mfa.

[Steven Rinella]

Yeah.

[Michael Barbaro]

And you start writing. You start writing.

[Steven Rinella]

But then I knew I was going to be a writer.

[Michael Barbaro]

Right. So you're not just going to be a hunter, you're going to be a hunter who writes about.

[Steven Rinella]

Yeah, because, because I was gonna be a trapper, but fur prices were so bad that it was just, it was untenable. But I had a knack for writing. I thought I was going to round out my income as a trapper by writing how to instructional trapping articles.

[Michael Barbaro]

So it's a great plan.

[Steven Rinella]

Yeah, I was gonna write. I was gonna write like, you know, late season muskrat techniques through, for, through the ice. Right.

[Michael Barbaro]

Well, I want to talk about, I want to talk about.

[Steven Rinella]

That's how I got, that's how I like began to, to write. But by the time I was finishing college, I wanted to be like a writer. Writer. Yeah.

[Michael Barbaro]

Well, I want to talk about your writing because you do a lot of really interesting writing that very much embodies this lifestyle you have. You write a book about recreating this famous epic 45 course meal from a famous French chef using Ingredients that you have scavenged out in the world, including of course, wild game. You write a book about buffalo and then you write what I consider to be your manifesto, meat eater. And I think it's beautifully written. And you describe for people like me who aren't of and from the hunting world and the hunting life what is so visceral and romantic and also at times complicated, difficult about hunting. And there's a passage I want to read. Let me read it to you.

[Steven Rinella]

Let's hear it.

[Michael Barbaro]

I was hungry in the wilderness and here came a few tons worth of caribou. 50 yards out and closing fast. In a moment like that, there's no time for emotional dawdling. It's time for unerring judgment. It is a time for speed, both mental and physical. It is a time for action and precision and discipline. It is a time to do what millions of years worth of evolution built us to do.

[Steven Rinella]

And.

[Michael Barbaro]

And in the act of doing it, you experience the unconfused purity of being a human predator, stripped of everything that is non essential. In that moment of impending violence and death, you are gifted a beautiful glimpse of life. I want you to explain this idea because this is the part of the hunting life that I think those of us who don't hunt with any regularity probably struggle to understand.

[Steven Rinella]

Yes.

[Michael Barbaro]

Can you just explain that?

[Steven Rinella]

Yeah. I have had the good fortune of taking many, many people out on their first hunting trip where they've gotten their first animal almost to the person. It's cathartic. People cry. It's a thing that happens if someone kills their first deer as an adult. They cry no regret, never regret. But it's like something is clicking with them about cycles of life and death. I never had that because I started so young. I deliberately started my kids very young to where nothing would surprise them. I later thought about that more when I had a chance now and then to hunt out with like indigenous hunters and gatherers in other parts of the world. You know what's absent, like in their hunting practices. Remorse absent. And these are people who for generations have hunted and fished for their living. There is like, it is joy and it is a lack of remorse. You feel honor, but like no remorse. It is taking life to them is life. It just is. It's like I continue on.

[Michael Barbaro]

Is that the life you're describing when you say you're gifted a glimpse of life?

[Steven Rinella]

Yeah. It's like that's how you stay alive. Like that is. That's the difference. And for ancestral humans, for wildlife, there's like death is you not killing.

[Michael Barbaro]

Death is you not killing.

[Steven Rinella]

Yeah. Because you starve. Right. Not me now, but I'm just talking about, like, why do you not see signs of remorse or compassion in wildlife? Why do you not see signs of remorse or regret with indigenous hunter gatherers? Because they've always seen with incredible clarity that. That taking of life, that killing gives life, gives life to them and their families.

[Michael Barbaro]

That relates to something else. You write in this book I consider to be your manifesto. Why do you think so many people feel so disconnected from this thing that's so visceral for you? Do you think it's just as simple as the fact that we now all rely on vast industrial slaughterhouse operations to get our food? Because we all go into grocery stores and buy our food? You write about this. You said people have no problem eating their food. That proxy executioners.

[Steven Rinella]

I'll never forget that phrase, hypocrisy. Kill. Like the thing I always think about. If I'm weighing the morality of this or if I'm like, analyzing my world and analyzing my food. It's like you ask yourself a simple question as much as it's possible. Put yourself in the shoes of an animal that will ultimately be consumed by a human. Would you rather jump into and live the life of something born on a slab of concrete and, like, fed every day and optimized. Yeah. And like your. Your inputs are optimized for your outputs, and it's like a done deal. When you hit 1100 pounds, you're dead. Right. Or imagine the life of a thing that is unaware. Like, unaware and then one day, just powder. Lights out in the woods, man, that wild life, for me as a human, trying to understand, like, that wild life is more beautiful and that wildlife is better.

[Michael Barbaro]

What you're saying is there's virtue in consuming an animal that has lived a rich and full and varied life on their own terms?

[Steven Rinella]

I believe so. There is a tremendous beauty in wildlife living in wild places. We culturally honor it. We build vacations around going to look at it. So when you're eating a thing that lived that life, that lived that, like, beautiful, wild, free life, it's just better. It's just different.

[Michael Barbaro]

Right? It's the ultimate free range.

[Steven Rinella]

Yeah. It's like nothing to regret here, man. It's a beautiful place, it's a beautiful animal. It lived a beautiful life, and now it's supporting us and we're going to support its environment so it can make more. It's just. It's tidy.

[Michael Barbaro]

In writing about hunting, you, you deliver an interesting and pretty stark judgment of those who would judge hunters like you. You write, to abhor hunting is to.

[Steven Rinella]

Hate something about yourself.

[Michael Barbaro]

You're right. To abhor hunting is to hate the place of which you came, which is akin to hating yourself in some distant, abstract way.

[Steven Rinella]

Yeah. So human history on our continent goes back somewhere around 20,000 years. Those people were all hunters. They hunted for a living. They were hunters here on this continent that only ended a couple hundred years ago. That's what's always had to. That's how people in what is now North America survived. They hunted. If they didn't hunt, they died. They were hunters. No matter how you define. Like, if you brought someone from outer space and they could come down and sort of get. Offer you, like, a little bit of an analysis of hunters, and they were to look at the scope of human history, and you're saying, hey, explain humans to me. The. The outer space person would look and be like, man, they're mostly hunters. Well, not lately. Right? That's what. That's, like, what we did. So how is it. How could it be that we've, like, shed all that? We haven't shed all that. So when I say that someone, like, abhors, the practice is like, dude, look at yourself. Where are your eyes? They're centered on your head, so you have really good depth perception. Why do you have canine teeth? It's like, you're not that far away from this.

[Michael Barbaro]

But the abhorring, that's real. What you're identifying here, there's a cultural chasm right between the way you grew up and the way so many of us now see ourselves and how we see our relationship to food. And why is it the case that this thing that is so essential to you and that is at the heart of how you identify yourself has become so rare?

[Steven Rinella]

I could answer that in 10 ways. Let me hit you with one.

[Michael Barbaro]

Sure.

[Steven Rinella]

Just to consider. If every American tomorrow went out and killed a deer, it'd be a real problem. We'd have a 200 million deer deficit. So it just became besides human will, besides what we want to do, it became impossible. It became impossible. It had to be, like, if you look at it, like, ecologically, it had to be. As the population exploded and as we destroyed all of our landscape, or much of our landscape, it had to be that we quit. That's the whole point of the agricultural revolutions, allows people to live close together. There was a reason why in, like, in Native America, the land had a carrying capacity. Human populations in, like, historic North America were the size they were, because that's how much you could fit there. That's how much you could extract from wildlife resources. And then we discover other ways. And so you can't anymore. You can't anymore. And even, like, think I've always felt was everybody can't do it, but I wanted everyone to understand it.

[Michael Barbaro]

So, like many people in this world, you simply want to be understood.

[Steven Rinella]

Yeah, I want to be understood. And also you want people to recognize this is the thing we haven't touched on yet. As I learned conservation history and I learned the outsized role of hunters in the conservation story, I also felt like we deserve more credit than we get. Right. And I was like, you should thank me. Now that I know what I know and you don't know, I know that you owe me a thanks. You owe me a debt of gratitude because by buying my hunting licenses and participating in things I participated in, like, we saved American wildlife.

[Michael Barbaro]

Right. And I didn't really know this or understand it very well until I read your book and read many of your writings, although I should have known this, that hunting licenses contribute directly to the funding for American conservation.

[Steven Rinella]

Yeah.

[Michael Barbaro]

Steve, you've written many, many poetic passages about the act of hunting. And I want to, as we wrap up our conversation, return to one of those writings. And if you don't mind, I'm gonna ask you to read this.

[Steven Rinella]

Oh, wow.

[Michael Barbaro]

You got a great reading voice.

[Steven Rinella]

I've learned to see the earth as a thing that breathes and writhes and brings forth life. I see these revelations as a form of grace and art, as beautiful as the things we humans attempt to capture through music, dance, and poetry. And as I've become aware of this, it has become increasingly difficult for me to see hunting as altogether outside of civilization. Maybe stalking the woods is as vital to the human condition as playing music or putting words to paper. Maybe hunting has as much of a claim on our civilized selves as anything else.

[Michael Barbaro]

It's really beautiful.

[Steven Rinella]

Oh, thank you.

[Michael Barbaro]

It makes me want to go hunting with you.

[Steven Rinella]

Oh, really?

[Michael Barbaro]

Yes. Well, I want to talk about this. Tomorrow morning, very early, you are taking me and my colleagues out hunting. And just to explain, because this episode is going to be running on Thanksgiving, we're not going to be hunting turkeys. No, you were very clear about that.

[Steven Rinella]

You can hunt turkeys here in the fall, but. But we hunt them in the spring. It's just like almost like culturally in the spring, during their breeding season, we hunt just the males, and you hunt the males when the males are out, gobbling and you can call them in and just very selective. Just get the males in the fall, guys will hunt. You can hunt them, but you, you risk killing the females. I don't like. Weirdly, I've never killed a turkey in the fall. I've killed many, many turkeys in the spring. I don't hunt them in the fall. So what's also fun, I love this little fact. The pilgrims, they're probably eating foul waterfowl. Migratory waterfowl, 100% deer, probably seafood, most certainly geese. If you look at all, if you look at all the journals and stuff, they were eating migratory waterfowl.

[Michael Barbaro]

So we're hunting duck.

[Steven Rinella]

Y. You will see ducks for sure. And you will eat ducks.

[Michael Barbaro]

I promise we'll eat them together. All right, well, we'll see you at dawn. Till then, thank you.

[Steven Rinella]

Thank you.

[Michael Barbaro]

Appreciate it.

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[Michael Barbaro]

Hey, it's Vaughn Vreeland from New York Times Cooking. Colder weather is here, and I'm no meteorologist, but I think the forecast says you should bake with us. These are deluxe cookies. Do you guys want to try this? Oh, my God. I could eat 5 billion of these. Mixing bowl to to cooking your mouth in about 30 minutes.

[McCormick Turkey Gravy Announcer]

Ooh, look at this color.

[Michael Barbaro]

Smells so good.

[Steven Rinella]

You better cut because this is gonna get messy.

[Michael Barbaro]

Listen, even if there's sweaters in your oven right now, I promise at New York Times Cooking, we have a recipe for everyone. So come bake with [e-mail]. Oh, yeah.

[Steven Rinella]

Wait, you guys got coffee already in the room. Oh, the room coffee.

[Michael Barbaro]

Yep.

[Steven Rinella]

There he is.

[Michael Barbaro]

Oh, man, is it nice out. Prepare for the worst. Embrace the 50°5am weather. The next morning, Steve picks us up in his very large pickup truck. You are the picture of promptness to drive us out to the duck hunting spot.

[Steven Rinella]

Unseasonably warm.

[Michael Barbaro]

And the only question is, will the ducks notice?

[Steven Rinella]

They might get down to an area like this and the weather is suitable, and then they'll just hang.

[Michael Barbaro]

So doesn't it seem like duck hanging weather?

[Steven Rinella]

Yeah, very duck hang weather.

[Michael Barbaro]

Why would you flee this weather?

[Steven Rinella]

Yeah, Because I do. We should go back north. It's too hot.

[Michael Barbaro]

Okay, so can you just, just explain where we're going? You picked us up at our hotel in downtown Bozeman. Yep.

[Steven Rinella]

I have a buddy. There's a property over here owned by a guy named Mark Pierce. He's a friend of mine. He's a big wetlands duck conservation guy. That's his thing, the way he, like, you know, they run cattle out there, they farm out there. But he is like his. Manage his land management, his wildlife first, Ducks first.

[Michael Barbaro]

Why did you want us to be hunting at this hour? Because it's 5:20 in the morning.

[Steven Rinella]

So there's the main movement that ducks will make like all day. The big movement that ducks will make is at daybreak sometime in the morning in the cold, gray light of dawn. To quote Robert O. Kean Jr. They, they like to float. They like to fly then. So that's why you want to be out there. And the other thing is, it's just like, there's like a tradition component. Like even if someone said they're like, man, they're not really going to fly till 9am Right. You just kind of would feel like.

[Michael Barbaro]

Lazy bugs.

[Steven Rinella]

Yeah, you'd feel like a real loser. It's just like, like I like hunting turkeys almost morning anything. And we kill a lot of turkeys between 10 and noon. But it's a sin to not be out there at daybreak.

[Michael Barbaro]

And I suppose this is old hat for you, but is this drive and the whole getting there process still filled with a lot of excitement for you every time you hunt?

[Steven Rinella]

Oh, yeah. No, it's always, it's. There's always an anticipation of what's going to happen or there's always like an element of mystery. It's like asking. It's like asking a question. You know, one time I was writing something about fishing. I was saying like, every cast, like you're asking a question, you know, waiting for the answer. So.

[Michael Barbaro]

All right, so we're now off the main road.

[Steven Rinella]

Yep. And we're. We're kind of in the agricultural area. And this is ground out here that won't get developed ever.

[Michael Barbaro]

So we're just pulling out into the tall grass here.

[Steven Rinella]

Yeah. And like, and there's crop fields all around us, but we're kind of down in the. We're down in the channels of water at this point.

[Michael Barbaro]

We're about 25 minutes outside of Bozeman, and it's so dark, we could honestly Be anywhere. It's quite beautiful just to see this all on the car lights.

[Steven Rinella]

Yeah. And it's fun when you go somewhere new or you. You don't know where you're at in the dark. And as it gets light out, you get to be like, oh, I'm completely disoriented.

[Michael Barbaro]

We pull into what looks like a grassy meadow and we all get out, and then we meet Max Bardow. Steve, how's it going?

[Steven Rinella]

Good, good, good. This is Max. Did you meet everybody?

[Michael Barbaro]

Max works with Steve on his TV show as a videographer, but he's here this morning because he's a very good duck hunter who brought all this gear with him, along with a very important member of our hunting party, his dog Ruby.

[Steven Rinella]

Yeah, this is Ruby.

[Michael Barbaro]

Hey, you're fine. And then suddenly it's very busy. Max and Steve are unloading a ton of stuff from their trucks.

[Steven Rinella]

Are you gonna wear waiters, Steve? Yeah.

[Michael Barbaro]

Let's go.

[Steven Rinella]

Okay. If you want to get real serious, I'll give you a big headlamp.

[Michael Barbaro]

I mean, wow, look at this thing. It's like a brass lamp, I think, fixed to a hunting cap.

[Steven Rinella]

It's called a raccoon light.

[Michael Barbaro]

And of course, they're gathering their guns and their ammo.

[Steven Rinella]

Well, it's shotgun. Can't hunt ducks with a rifle.

[Michael Barbaro]

Now, just to be clear, I am here observing. I'm not going to be shooting a gun today.

[Steven Rinella]

And even, like, all this stuff is regulated. So this is called a 12 gauge shotgun. When hunting migratory waterfowl, you have to put a thing in here called a plug that prevents you from putting more than two shells in the magazine.

[Michael Barbaro]

So this is a pile of plastic decoy ducks. There are a shocking number of duck decoys, and goose decoys use them to.

[Steven Rinella]

Fool real ducks, which is kind of crazy to me.

[Michael Barbaro]

I always make the joke whenever, like, the ducks don't come in, I always say, well, yeah, we got a pile of plastic out there and four human beings trying to hide themselves. You know, like, no wonder they're not coming in.

[Steven Rinella]

They're like, that don't look good.

[Michael Barbaro]

Nope. And pretty soon we're all walking out into the grassy darkness.

[Steven Rinella]

Yeah, please.

[Michael Barbaro]

You can just grab them by the handles. Yep, like that Morning witness day. Yeah. So we're setting up for the water. How deep is it? It's like just below my knees here.

[Steven Rinella]

So what we're doing is we're putting decoys here to show that there's ducks congregating here. But then, but then the main pocket. You want them to be in is right there. And that puts them more out in front of you.

[Michael Barbaro]

So basically right here in this. Now in this vacuum is where you hope the duck is going to come.

[Steven Rinella]

Yeah, like, like kind of good landing areas.

[Michael Barbaro]

Right where you just toss that rock.

[Steven Rinella]

Yeah, right across that rock. I got it.

[Michael Barbaro]

It's kind of cool to now see them spread about suddenly. Looks like there's a lot of ducks in this pond, even though they're fake. Steve, can you just describe this structure that we're gonna be going into?

[Steven Rinella]

Yep. This is a very nice hunting blind.

[Michael Barbaro]

It's like a. It's like a very elaborately camouflaged shoe box.

[Steven Rinella]

Yeah. It's got a bench to sit in. It's got a little gun rack. And then it's picture just like. Yeah, a shoe box big enough to hold seven people, ideally five people packed very tightly. We're challenging the space, but it's big. Mainly it provides a structure that you can affix all this vegetation to.

[Michael Barbaro]

Yeah, I think it's like thoroughly layered with hay brush.

[Steven Rinella]

It's meant to blend in. Yeah.

[Michael Barbaro]

If you didn't know it was here, it wouldn't be here.

[Steven Rinella]

Ducks can see color. They're. They can be very hard to trick. And so this just allows you to stay concealed.

[Michael Barbaro]

That's a dog box. Yeah.

[Steven Rinella]

That'S for his dog. That can't.

[Michael Barbaro]

That's. So your dog is counted by. Yeah, she loves it. Like it's crazy. If I don't bring her, she is so teed off at me. Just like. So we pile into this duck blind. So you mind if I go in?

[Steven Rinella]

No, no.

[Michael Barbaro]

Steve plants himself at the far end of the blind and Max is at the other end. So you're.

[Steven Rinella]

What's that?

[Michael Barbaro]

See that's loaded now.

[Steven Rinella]

Yeah. This is the safe. Do we have everybody within ear shot? Cuz you're not shooting. There's not a lot to know about, but I really can't think of any way you'd get shot. Don't.

[Michael Barbaro]

Don't get shot.

[Steven Rinella]

Yeah. Don't stand up unexpectedly. You don't have shotguns so you can't really do any damage. Yeah, never mind. I can't picture a world in which you'd get hurt. Don't jump out of the blind. But you, you can't because Max is on the end. There's nothing to do.

[Michael Barbaro]

And after all the work of placing the decoys and getting the dog into the dog blind and all of us humans and our gear into the duck blind, there's nothing to do but wait. So it's now about 6:30am and first light is emerging. And the silhouettes of the mountains now appear with the sun behind them. Oh, and that's our first actual real bird sighting. Just flew right over us. I think that was a goose. What was that? That was me blowing my car. Max has with him a variety of duck calls. These little wind instruments that are hanging around his neck. Do you see that duck swimming there? Yeah, that's a Drake mountain. He blows them occasionally to attract the birds right now. And he's really, really good at it.

[Steven Rinella]

Hey, Max, what was League of Light? Oh, we got two minutes.

[Michael Barbaro]

Now that we're settled, Steve and Max become very conscious of the time you.

[Steven Rinella]

Can legally hunt ducks 30 minutes before legal sunrise. There's a doc.

[Michael Barbaro]

And Max lets Steve know officially that they're good to go.

[Steven Rinella]

Here comes duck right here.

[Michael Barbaro]

And Steve shoots a bird right out of the sky. It all happens so fast. You just shot and killed the very first duck you saw of the morning.

[Steven Rinella]

No, no, we saw a lot of ducks this morning.

[Michael Barbaro]

No, you just.

[Steven Rinella]

That was the first duck at legal light.

[Michael Barbaro]

And you hit it.

[Steven Rinella]

Yep, we hit one.

[Michael Barbaro]

The dog returns to the blind with the duck in its mouth. That's the most efficient thing I've ever seen. Ruby Kennel. Max tucks the duck onto a little shelf in front of us, and right away, Steve starts to spot more and more birds flying overhead.

[Steven Rinella]

Look at all those ducks.

[Michael Barbaro]

Look at this. And the rest of the morning proceeds just like that. There are these very long periods of silence. Some hits and some misses.

[Steven Rinella]

You know those people that make those rugs and they put an imperfection in there so that it's not insulting to God. You know, like, Max has this little thing where he'll do a miss now and then. What was that?

[Michael Barbaro]

You making fun of me because I missed? No, he's calling you godlike, and we're just kind of hanging out together.

[Steven Rinella]

Well, no, he doesn't want to seem pompous to God in the eyes of God, so he misses them inside this.

[Michael Barbaro]

Incredibly tiny duck blind in the middle of this gorgeous grassy wetland.

[Steven Rinella]

As they better understand bird vision, there's this idea that iridescence is like glowing neon. That this in their vision is like, you know, like very. They're very tuned into that iridescence.

[Michael Barbaro]

And I start to feel this camaraderie. We're all now in league together. And then every so often, Max and Steve become extremely focused once again on the sky. Everyone gets serious. Right side, right side, right side. And then another duck is down hey, girl. Max returns to the blind with the bird. And he holds it out to me. Michael. Wow.

[Steven Rinella]

He's very pretty.

[Michael Barbaro]

Yeah, you can just grab him like this. Grab him. He's a little wet, but. Wow. I've never held a duck in my hands before, living or dead. Wow. He's got so many different colors on him too. It's still warm. I'm holding this still warm duck with his beautiful feathers. Dark green, dark blue. It's kind of white, fringed at the edges. Steve, I'm feeling the things now.

[Steven Rinella]

What are you feeling?

[Michael Barbaro]

I'm feeling all the things. Oh, really?

[Steven Rinella]

I mean, you feel something?

[Michael Barbaro]

This creature in my hands that was alive 10 seconds ago and is now still warm. And I'm feeling all the feelings that you write about. It's like, it's beautiful, it's sad. It's.

[Steven Rinella]

Like regret.

[Michael Barbaro]

Do I feel regret like you?

[Steven Rinella]

Are you like. Man, we shouldn't have done that.

[Michael Barbaro]

No, that's not. That's not the first. That's not the feeling I have. I just feel connected to this thing. That's what I feel. I feel connected to it in a way that's kind of hard to explain.

[Steven Rinella]

Like my daughter, she'll want to lay them a certain way. She kind of smooths them out.

[Michael Barbaro]

Wow. I feel like this is changing my relationship to the sky. I'm just like scanning the sky, looking for any sign of wings because they come so quickly. By 9am There is a row of eight birds lined up inside this duck blind. Can I stand up, Steve?

[Steven Rinella]

Yeah. We're done.

[Michael Barbaro]

And Steve calls it we're done. So that's it. We're done. Eight ducks, two hours.

[Steven Rinella]

Is that what it was?

[Michael Barbaro]

Yeah. After the break, our hunting expedition concludes in Steve's kitchen. Mom making Thanksgiving dinner looks like so much work. How do you make it taste so good?

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[Michael Barbaro]

How about the mashed potatoes? Oh, come on. Too easy. Turkey?

[McCormick Turkey Gravy Announcer]

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[Michael Barbaro]

Green beans, stuffing, rolls.

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[Michael Barbaro]

A New York Times subscription.

[Steven Rinella]

We exchange articles and so having read.

[Michael Barbaro]

The same article, we can discuss it.

[Steven Rinella]

She sent me a year long subscription so I have access to all the games.

[Michael Barbaro]

The New York Times contributes to our quality time together.

[Steven Rinella]

It enriches Our relationship. It was such a cool and thoughtful gift.

[Michael Barbaro]

We're reading the same stuff. We're making the same food. We're on the same page.

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[Michael Barbaro]

Okay, so we're on our way to Steve's, where the ducks await us, and we're gonna pluck them, butcher them, eat them. There's no question this is Steve's house because there's a beautiful set of antlers hanging over the garage. I think it's actually a full skull. It's a huge full skull with antlers just like the meat eater logo and.

[Steven Rinella]

A lot more antlers as we approach the front door.

[Michael Barbaro]

Oh, the door's open. Literally open door, which is very welcoming.

[Steven Rinella]

Hi there.

[Michael Barbaro]

The whole family's here. So we arrive at Steve's house. Okay, I'm Michael. Hi, Michael. I'm Katie. And we meet his wife, his three kids, plus their friends. Hi, everybody.

[Steven Rinella]

We'll go this way to start.

[Michael Barbaro]

Okay.

[Steven Rinella]

You want to wear. Do you want latex gloves? You good?

[Michael Barbaro]

I think. I think I'm okay. Just doing it with my bare hands.

[Steven Rinella]

Okay, the bare hand.

[Michael Barbaro]

We're in your.

[Steven Rinella]

In the garage. We could do it inside, but we'll do it out here.

[Michael Barbaro]

That makes sense to do it on the ground. So when you put your. You put your outside here in the garage.

[Steven Rinella]

Usually inside, sometimes. What up with feathers out here.

[Michael Barbaro]

So here are our four ducks.

[Steven Rinella]

Yep. Want to see how to do it?

[Michael Barbaro]

Yeah, I would like you to show me.

[Steven Rinella]

Okay. So.

[Michael Barbaro]

So you're just grabbing all the feathers on the chest and just pretty gently ripping them off.

[Steven Rinella]

See, those are. Those could be teeth marks from the dog or pellet.

[Michael Barbaro]

Why does it feel like you're so. My. My plucking is so insufficient.

[Steven Rinella]

Oh, it's a learned thing. It's like. It's like blowing on a call. Like, the first time sucks, and you get better and better at it.

[Michael Barbaro]

All right, I. I think I'm ready to face your judgment.

[Steven Rinella]

You're not close yet.

[Michael Barbaro]

Like, keep going, bud.

[Steven Rinella]

Yeah, in the end. In the end, you'll get it where you can. You just kind of go like this. You don't need to do the back.

[Michael Barbaro]

Okay.

[Steven Rinella]

Unless you want a whole roaster to bring home.

[Michael Barbaro]

Can you take duck interstate? Yeah.

[Steven Rinella]

Well, you got. You got to decide, like. Well, I would give you this one, because this one's perfect. So we would pluck this, leave a fully feathered wing, and you can walk right on the plane with it. You don't need to check it. They might detect an organic mass, as they call it in TSA land. But you're not. There's no problem. You would feel like, no, I have a frozen. I have frozen food. And you're fine. If you'd like this to bring home, because that's a perfect spasm. Look at that thing.

[Michael Barbaro]

It's beautiful.

[Steven Rinella]

Looks like something out of Christmas Carol, don't it?

[Michael Barbaro]

Yes, it does.

[Steven Rinella]

Yeah.

[Michael Barbaro]

With just a couple of palette marks, I think I'm getting the neck of my thumb.

[Steven Rinella]

No, you're looking good now. So that's what you're after. And we can even clean that up more with blowtorx. But. So that's with a blowtorch. So just take this very. From a distance. Burn those little hairs off.

[Michael Barbaro]

Is this the right distance?

[Steven Rinella]

Just. Just enough where you watch them just get zapped. All right, let me go get the top.

[Michael Barbaro]

Is this.

[Steven Rinella]

Yep. Just real light. Don't cook it. Yeah, you're doing good. Then we wash them. They'll look real.

[Michael Barbaro]

Did not expect to be using a blowtorch.

[Steven Rinella]

Okay, see this? See this breastbone come in like that. Then you know when you see chicken tenders on a menu and kids want to order them, that's that. That's a duck tender.

[Michael Barbaro]

That's that kind of classic duck fat.

[Steven Rinella]

See, that's. That's good stuff. Okay, good.

[Michael Barbaro]

Yeah. Head to the kitchen.

[Steven Rinella]

Yep.

[Michael Barbaro]

And then we move from the garage into the kitchen. You kind of have an indoor kitchen and an outdoor kitchen.

[Steven Rinella]

Yeah.

[Michael Barbaro]

And that.

[Steven Rinella]

That's nice because it's covered, you know.

[Michael Barbaro]

In winter's long, where Steve has been preparing this wild game feast using every imaginable cooking method, he is using a smoker.

[Steven Rinella]

Oh, dude, that's overdone. Ah, dammit.

[Michael Barbaro]

Apparently we've overcooked the turkey. The wild turkey, as is Thanksgiving tradition. Yes, yes, it's totally true. He's using an open fire that's like.

[Steven Rinella]

That sous vide goose. And then you're putting it on a rack just to, like, crisp it up.

[Michael Barbaro]

Put on top of an open. This is a rack on an open fire.

[Steven Rinella]

Yep. He's cooking it on a fire.

[Michael Barbaro]

And one by one, these dishes emerge. There's black bear that he hunted in Alaska. There's wild turkey and Canadian goose from a hunting trip with his kids. And of course, the duck.

[Steven Rinella]

Like, the best way to get it. The skin crisp.

[Michael Barbaro]

This is the duck skin.

[Steven Rinella]

Is to put it as soon as you start the burner. So put them on there now. And. And don't.

[Michael Barbaro]

He.

[Steven Rinella]

Don't preheat it. Like, lay them on there.

[Michael Barbaro]

Okay. I'm going to put the skin down.

[Steven Rinella]

Skin down. You know what I'm saying? Like, if you put it on there when it's hot, it does. It doesn't. It doesn't get as crispy, and it, like, instantly, like, puckers up. We want to do it. Oh. From there in the oven, flip it and then into the oven. 400.

[Michael Barbaro]

In the oven.

[Steven Rinella]

Outside for a quick second.

[Michael Barbaro]

Is this time to tell you how anxious I get about whether I'm overcooking meats?

[Steven Rinella]

Oh, the duck.

[Michael Barbaro]

The duck.

[Steven Rinella]

Not long. Okay, we'll eat that real rare. The black bear that I took out, that has the bone sticking out of the end. That, and I've had trichinosis from black bear. That.

[Michael Barbaro]

That's good to know.

[Steven Rinella]

You have to cook the same way. Like, in the old days, you had to cook pork really well.

[Michael Barbaro]

Yeah. That was cooked in the oven for quite some time.

[Steven Rinella]

I saw him with the thermometer, checking it. Oh, it's like. It's like 20. 20 degrees above what it needs to be.

[Michael Barbaro]

I learned my lesson. So now the duck is out of the oven. Pretty remarkable that that thing was flying above our heads. That solved it four or five hours ago. And then we sit down at Steve's dining room table, and all this meat that Steve has been cooking is laid out in front of us. This is a remarkable bounty you've prepared for us. This table is filled with meat.

[Steven Rinella]

It's light on veggies, but what we have.

[Michael Barbaro]

I would say it's very light on veggies.

[Steven Rinella]

What we have here. Try one of these. These are good. So we grill carrots and then pickle them.

[Michael Barbaro]

All right, where should we start?

[Steven Rinella]

I ruined turkey.

[Michael Barbaro]

So we'll start with the worst.

[Steven Rinella]

We'll start with the ruined turkey. Terrible.

[Michael Barbaro]

It's delicious.

[Steven Rinella]

Neutral.

[Michael Barbaro]

Mm.

[Steven Rinella]

Very dry.

[Michael Barbaro]

I think my mother's done worse than this. So this is the bear.

[Steven Rinella]

This is black bear.

[Michael Barbaro]

I can definitely say I've never eaten bear before.

[Steven Rinella]

Yeah.

[Michael Barbaro]

Tastes like.

[Steven Rinella]

You'd never know it was bear meat.

[Michael Barbaro]

Tastes like lamb or beef.

[Steven Rinella]

Yeah, it's lamb. Like, this is fine about you. Never. You never flag it as unusual.

[Michael Barbaro]

Now, is the sous vide and grilled.

[Steven Rinella]

No, that's the can of goose.

[Michael Barbaro]

That's good.

[Steven Rinella]

And you can dress it up all kinds of ways.

[Michael Barbaro]

It's really tender.

[Steven Rinella]

Yeah.

[Michael Barbaro]

I'm very excited to try the duck.

[Steven Rinella]

It got cold.

[Michael Barbaro]

Got cold.

[Steven Rinella]

It took a long time. Nothing wrong with cold duck.

[Michael Barbaro]

It's great. It's fatty, juicy, cold. I mean, just to take it back to our original conversation, it's extremely gratifying to consume food that you yourself have participated in. Hunting, defeathering, butchering, cooking. It's like 100% start to finish your food.

[Steven Rinella]

You're the only person ever touched it. You ever think about that? No one's ever touched that except us.

[Michael Barbaro]

Yeah.

[Steven Rinella]

First person, only person.

[Michael Barbaro]

Yeah. It's like I feel a certain level of possessiveness over this food I don't think I've ever felt before. It's not anonymous.

[Steven Rinella]

Yeah. You know, then you get into freezer, freezer hoarding and stuff like that.

[Michael Barbaro]

Or.

[Steven Rinella]

You get really weird or weird to your family about it and everything. There's a thing that happens. Just talk to my wife about it sometimes.

[Michael Barbaro]

Steve, I just wanted to thank you for the time you spent with us, for the lessons you've taught us, and express my gratitude. Happy Thanksgiving.

[Steven Rinella]

Oh, Happy Thanksgiving to you.

[Michael Barbaro]

Appreciate it. It was a really special day for us.

[Steven Rinella]

Thank you very much.

[Michael Barbaro]

A really profound experience.

[Steven Rinella]

Next time you see a goose flying by, you'll be like, now that is.

[Michael Barbaro]

What that tastes like.

[Steven Rinella]

When you see a goose in a golf course, you're like, now that bird is a worthwhile bird.

[Michael Barbaro]

Today's episode was produced by Tina Antolini. It was edited by Wendy Dore. Our field engineer was Afim Shapiro, and the episode was mixed by Alyssa Jane Moxley. It was fact checked by Susan Lee. Contains original music by Daniel Powell and additional music by Mar Marian Lozano. Special thanks to Ben Calhoun, Paige Cowet, Katie Finch, Malia Wolin and Phil Taylor. That's it for the Daily I'm Michael Balboro. Happy Thanksgiving and see you tomorrow. Is this sanitary if I ask to try one of these? I've got a duck call you can try. That is sanitary.

[Steven Rinella]

Yeah, got it.

[Michael Barbaro]

No, just. Just. Better. I want one. Good call. Ducks are like, not coming. Whatever that is, that's not.

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