Hunts and Casseroles

 Book: Cacerías y Cacerolas (Hunts and Casseroles) by Alejandro Marcos.

(01-15-2013) I bought this book almost by accident, as buying it wasn’t in my plans. But while skimming through it in passing while shopping for other things, it caught my attention, and I made it my own. Actually, I bought two copies and gave one of them away as a gift. 

Published by Ediciones Libertador and printed in 2006, it is a small book of around 120 pages.

The author, a hunter, tells hunting stories and adds the preparation of his game. What makes it interesting is the variety of animals he features. They range from snakes to crickets, including frogs, iguanas, and rheas. It is a quick read because it is written in simple language, yet it features many unusual words that enrich the text. It falls into clichés—lots of alcohol and cigarettes, which are repeated often—as well as less elaborate recipes, such as the repetitive use of garlic and parsley in many of them. But the author himself states that this is not a cookbook, but rather a book meant for entertainment. And that hits the mark. Sometimes it sins by being chauvinistic in some of its comments, and other times those remarks are a bit out of place. But if we overlook those comments, we are left with the best the book has to offer, especially for those of us who know nothing about everything related to hunting. There are interesting anecdotes, some stories involving danger, and the occasional adventure he recounts, like when he brought a frozen pheasant all the way from Spain. What makes it interesting is that he traveled to many places: several Argentine provinces and a bit of Spain. 

Above all, I like it when he talks about small towns or local people from the country's interior.
At the beginning, he mentions the “Toledano Muela knife.” It caught my attention, and I looked it up; it was nothing more than a sports knife, and that reference was its brand name.

On other occasions, he mentions the “coloradas.” What are the “coloradas”? I suppose people from the interior, or at least from his region—the west of the province of Buenos Aires and part of La Pampa—must identify them very well. At least it must be common there to refer to the bird by that everyday name, but here they were completely unknown to me. I looked it up, and apparently it refers to the red-winged tinamou (martineta); at least I knew the bird as a martineta, though I don't know if he is indeed alluding to them or referring to another bird.
It is not strictly a cookbook, nor is it purely a book of stories; it's a mix of both.

He mentions some hunting techniques and describes them. Some might seem a bit harsh, but if you are going to read a book about hunting, you can't expect anything else.

On other occasions, when he talks about “mulitas,” he is referring to the armadillo. At the same time, when he talks about “peludos,” he is referring to the hairy armadillo (quirquincho or tatú). Although “tatú” is often used to refer to both, and sometimes they are confused or not well differentiated.

(Original date 01-15-2013)