Steven Rinella's (Meateater Podcast) First Trip to Africa
Posted: Thu Dec 04, 2025 7:09 pm
Steven Rinella of the Meateater Podcast has hunted and fished all over the world-but he had never had any desire to go to Africa. However, an African PH is married to an American woman and he lives for half the year near Rinella in the Bozeman area and they met and the Tanzania trip was the result.
If anyone is interested I am linking to 1 of his podcast episode. It does not show any hunting or dead animals and such.
1) Episode 737: "A Life-Changing Hunting Experience in Africa"-is best described as a debrief after the hunt and takes place while he is still in Africa. This is the episode I would recommend as he covers a lot of topics that the uninformed might be interested in.
https://www.themeateater.com/listen/meateater/ep-737
2) For the adults in the room I am including another episode.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=drV9NHNLVY4&t=463s
This one has some shows some hunting later on and you see the dead buffalo early on-but I include it for the first 8 minutes of so which shows how meat is preserved in an environment with no freezers and 80 degree weather.
The last 5 minutes (or so) of the video shows him (and his crew) invited to the home of a member of the safari companies anti-poaching crew.
I just found a short of Rinella that focuses on the meat he ate (Oxtail soup was the best) and how the meat is distributed.
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/Bv3a3UUA9ys
Of course, some might remember from years ago that SSS whose only travel experiences are of the canned cruise itinerary type will likely consider all that meat prep and distribution and so forth as fake and just part of the show.
He has multiple other episodes more focused on the hunt and so forth and a couple of thingsjumped out at me.
1) The PH said the only thing that he has not seen used as human food from the gut cavity is the lungs. They don't take all the viscera every time-but, the stomach and intestines and so forth are regularly used and I doubt they ever leave the liver.
When we get a deer, I am well known for taking the heart and ttenderloin (filet Mignon-which is accessible through the gut cavity. I never take the liver-but this year we had somebody who wanted the livers so we took them as well.
Oddly enough, I had been wondering about how to fix lung-but I will trust these guys and leave the lungs alone.
2) The hunt took place in remote area of western Tanzania and the large hunting area adjoined a large national park. It was mentioned several times that there were only 14 visitors to the national park last year. Well, no matter how rose-colored your glasses are-14 photographic visitors are not enough to save a landscape scale ecosystem and the hunting area subsidizes the park with anti-poaching and so forth.
3) I had never listened to Rinella much before-but his topics cover a wide number of topics-For example, I just listened to am episode on jaguars.
4) Rinella is fascinated by how many of the trackers and such had been former poachers and I noted the long apprenticeship that the skinners have to undergo for that job. These jobs are highly sought after in places like rural Tanzania.
FTR-I have limited interest in any interaction regarding this post. I won't waste one second of time on somebody who doesn't at least listen to Episode 737-and watch the meat stuff.
And I don't care if you do or not-I put it here as a continuation of a topic from years ago
If anyone is interested I am linking to 1 of his podcast episode. It does not show any hunting or dead animals and such.
1) Episode 737: "A Life-Changing Hunting Experience in Africa"-is best described as a debrief after the hunt and takes place while he is still in Africa. This is the episode I would recommend as he covers a lot of topics that the uninformed might be interested in.
https://www.themeateater.com/listen/meateater/ep-737
2) For the adults in the room I am including another episode.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=drV9NHNLVY4&t=463s
This one has some shows some hunting later on and you see the dead buffalo early on-but I include it for the first 8 minutes of so which shows how meat is preserved in an environment with no freezers and 80 degree weather.
The last 5 minutes (or so) of the video shows him (and his crew) invited to the home of a member of the safari companies anti-poaching crew.
I just found a short of Rinella that focuses on the meat he ate (Oxtail soup was the best) and how the meat is distributed.
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/Bv3a3UUA9ys
Of course, some might remember from years ago that SSS whose only travel experiences are of the canned cruise itinerary type will likely consider all that meat prep and distribution and so forth as fake and just part of the show.
He has multiple other episodes more focused on the hunt and so forth and a couple of thingsjumped out at me.
1) The PH said the only thing that he has not seen used as human food from the gut cavity is the lungs. They don't take all the viscera every time-but, the stomach and intestines and so forth are regularly used and I doubt they ever leave the liver.
When we get a deer, I am well known for taking the heart and ttenderloin (filet Mignon-which is accessible through the gut cavity. I never take the liver-but this year we had somebody who wanted the livers so we took them as well.
Oddly enough, I had been wondering about how to fix lung-but I will trust these guys and leave the lungs alone.
2) The hunt took place in remote area of western Tanzania and the large hunting area adjoined a large national park. It was mentioned several times that there were only 14 visitors to the national park last year. Well, no matter how rose-colored your glasses are-14 photographic visitors are not enough to save a landscape scale ecosystem and the hunting area subsidizes the park with anti-poaching and so forth.
3) I had never listened to Rinella much before-but his topics cover a wide number of topics-For example, I just listened to am episode on jaguars.
4) Rinella is fascinated by how many of the trackers and such had been former poachers and I noted the long apprenticeship that the skinners have to undergo for that job. These jobs are highly sought after in places like rural Tanzania.
FTR-I have limited interest in any interaction regarding this post. I won't waste one second of time on somebody who doesn't at least listen to Episode 737-and watch the meat stuff.
And I don't care if you do or not-I put it here as a continuation of a topic from years ago