A SIMPLE PLEASURE: THE HUNT LUNCH

In William Harnden Foster’s classic book, New England Grouse Shooting (1942), for which he wrote the text and provided numerous black-and-white sketches, he includes a wide-ranging catch-all chapter called “Grouse Shooting Outfits

- Bob DeMott

” Besides providing advice on proper clothing and footwear for the serious grouse hunter, the chapter, “an overexacting accumulation of fussy details,” also touches on the all-important midday meal. Foster cautions against choosing food that is “so salty as to produce undue thirst,” but otherwise he opens the door to a variety of different possibilities when he says of noon-time repasts that they are “subjects that vary with personal ideas and tastes.”

I can attest to that. To my mind, the midday hunt meal ranks near the top of earthly enjoyments. Next to meaningful personal relationships, satisfying mutual sex with your spouse or partner, staying fit and healthy, making enough money to stay solvent, seeing your kids get out of the house and start self-sufficient lives on their own and benefiting from first-rate dog work on upland game, few things in life are as enjoyable as the simple pleasure of eating lunch during a hunt, preferably out of doors.

There is something appealing and soul-satisfying about taking a midday break afield after a few hours of strenuous activity on foot, by yourself or in the company of friends, following behind athletic hunting dogs. Depending on when you start the day’s hunt, sometime between 11 a.m. and 2 p.m. is ideal for a restful halt. You are ready to stop, take a breather, refuel and rehearse or rehash the morning’s sporting action, which might have been spectacular and exceeded expectations or downright dismal. On most outings, come lunchtime, the morning’s tally hardly matters and, good or bad, manages to provide plenty to talk about or hash over at the break.