The American who abandoned her high profile career at the Wall Street to pursue her culinary skills, Georgia Pellegrini talks to media on a Sunday chat show. She says that Squirrels are best hoarders and your eating habits make the self proclamation of what you are. She adds that the best way to best assess the quality of meat eaten is to hunt the animal.
Some consider squirrel to be the best meat in the woods. On my journey as a chef, I have come to think that it may be the best meat period, says the author of `Girl Hunter.’ Adding that squirrels feasted on a grove of pecans or acorns, their meat is nutty and sweet, buttery and tender. And so a fat, nut-fed squirrel is not only better tasting than any meat in the woods, it can be even better tasting, and much more economical. `Squirrel hunting is more American than apple pie,’ says the culinary expert.
She briefed that America’s, whole traditions have formed around these squirrels; guns have been crafted in their honor. Concluding her Squirrel analogy the hunter-chef proclaims that Squirrels are wanderers, sometimes ground dwelling and social, living in well-developed colonies; or sometimes tree dwelling and solitary. Squirrels persevere, hoard, and make dietary sacrifices to survive. Maybe the early pioneers saw a bit of themselves in squirrels. Or maybe these animals just tasted better.
The self-proclaimed girly girl’s life has taken a circuitous path from the hallowed halls of the uber elite, New York City prep school she attended, to the backwoods of America’s heartland where she now hones her pioneer skills and stalks game while decked in camouflage. Georgia’s new book, “Girl Hunter”, tells how she, a Wellesley College grad, abandoned her job on Wall Street to pursue her lifelong love of cooking and passion for good, simple food. First she enrolled at the French Culinary Institute, then she went on to work at farm to table restaurants in the U.S. (Gramercy Tavern and Blue Hill at Stone Barns) and France (La Chassagnette), where she cooked, drove heavy farm equipment, and harvested both meat and plants for dinner. It was during all of this when Georgia came to realize that the only way to truly know where our meat comes from is if we hunt it ourselves. So, she bought a shotgun and set her sights on the cutting edge of culinary creativity intent on doing ALL the hard work required to live off the best her own two hands could produce. (With inputs from the Internet-AarKay)
