Jesse Griffiths

JESSE GRIFFITHS: I was born in Denton, in North Texas, and lived there for about 20 years. I worked in restaurants there starting at age 16, fished a lot, and partied. I remember loving to cook from an early age, and I was obsessed with catching and cooking fish, which hasn’t seemed to wear off yet. I came to hunting later in life. The intersection between cooking, fishing and hunting came pretty naturally, and I think that the choices I was making in the restaurants were informed by the natural conservation ethics one tends toward because of time spent outdoors. You don’t waste a deer’s life, so why waste a chicken’s? They both died for you. And for that matter, so did a turnip, but with a lot less drama. Living in Texas is also a big part of that identity. It’s a pretty agrarian state, and a wild state, too. It has incredible heritage, and it’s fun to reflect on this through food.