A Return To My Tasty Roots

I hunt for the same reasons I cook: I love to eat and at some point realized that no one else was going to give me what I want (or anything at all). Doves are difficult to find at the local supermarket; so I have to go get them myself. While I love biting into dove that have been stuffed with jalapeños, wrapped in bacon, and glazed with honey, it would be a lie to say that I only hunt for food. Waking up before dawn, walking out in a field, and sitting there as the sun comes up in silence as the wind blows calms me like few other things. It also connects me to time spent with my father as a child. Even if I hunt alone, I feel closer to him. This is especially true when I merely wing a bird and have to finish it off by hand. I wish he were there to do the dirty work.

As far as killing goes, I’m not a big fan but strongly believe that if you eat meat, you should know all that it involves. It’s oddly refreshing to get your meat by cleaning an animal and not by simply ripping cellophane from a cutlet or ground beef formed from hundreds of cows.

It’s been a while since I last hunted but was recently given the opportunity, and I haven’t been this excited in a long time. I get fresh, healthy meat, relaxing time outdoors, a male ego boost, and childhood nostalgia all at once. And I get to shoot a gun. All of these things have reopened something inside of me: another connection to my culture.

My relatives are good country folk from Louisiana who mostly eat simple dishes, many of which are prepared from game they have killed themselves. My best Thanksgiving memory was with family in Mansfield where we ate dishes like duck and andouille gumbo, greens, pound cake, and ambrosia. Most of my daily meals as a child involved rice, beans, and cornbread. And when I look back at my most beloved meals it would easily be my grandfather frying up crappie, perch, and catfish along with hushpuppies or hot water cornbread, and French fries. This was all preceded by driving out on my grandfather’s boat on the Sabine River and pulling up trot lines or me standing on the dock calling up to my father every five minutes because I was too timid to take yet another perch off the hook. These memories stir something inside me: It’s telling me that in the end, no matter where I travel or what I do in life, something will be pulling me back to my roots and back to that river.

My mother once told me that I should find a girl with the same background as me because I will be the happiest that way. That sort of predestination goes against every bone in my body. I’ve fought and rebelled from it for years–and in some ways, still am. That stirring in me tells me that I will end up living in a trailer on the banks of the Sabine with a cookhouse (this time it will be James’ instead of Frank’s) and running trot lines and nets (legal and illegal) like my grandfather. Either that, or I will create my own version of that somewhere else, but the themes will be the same.

As I step out onto the field this dove season and listen to the rustling maize and millet, I imagine that the call of my past will strengthen. And for once, I won’t fight it as much because I can’t think of many things better in life than following in my father’s and grandfather’s footsteps.

* Photo by Bob MacInnes