The Wild Turkey (Meleagris gallopavo) is native to North America and is the heaviest member of the Galliformes. It is the same species as the domestic turkey, which derives from the South Mexican subspecies of wild turkey (not to be confused with the Meleagris ocellata native to the forests of the Yucatán Peninsula).

Adult wild turkeys have long reddish-yellow to grayish-green legs and a black body. Males, called toms or gobblers, have a large, featherless, reddish head, red throat, and red wattles on the throat and neck. The head has fleshy growths called caruncles. When males are excited, a fleshy flap on the bill expands, and this, the wattles and the bare skin of the head and neck all become engorged with blood, almost concealing the eyes and bill. The long fleshy object over a male's beak is called a snood. When a male turkey is excited, its head turns blue; when ready to fight, it turns red. Each foot has three toes, and males have a spur behind each of their lower legs.

Turkey (Turkish: Türkiye), known officially as the Republic of Turkey ( Türkiye Cumhuriyeti (help·info)), is a Eurasian country located in Western Asia (mostly in the Anatolian peninsula) and in East Thrace in Southeastern Europe. Turkey is bordered by eight countries: Bulgaria to the northwest; Greece to the west; Georgia to the northeast; Armenia, Azerbaijan (the exclave of Nakhchivan) and Iran to the east; and Iraq and Syria to the southeast. The Mediterranean Sea and Cyprus are to the south; the Aegean Sea is to the west; and the Black Sea is to the north. The Sea of Marmara, the Bosphorus and the Dardanelles (which together form the Turkish Straits) demarcate the boundary between East Thrace and Anatolia; they also separate Europe and Asia.

Turkey is one of the six independent Turkic states. The vast majority of the population are Muslims. The country's official language is Turkish, whereas Kurdish and Zazaki languages are spoken by Kurds and Zazas, who constitute 18% of the population.

Steven Rinella is an American writer, television personality, hunter, and outdoorsman. He is the author of the The Scavenger’s Guide to Haute Cuisine and American Buffalo: In Search of a Lost Icon, as well as numerous magazine and newspaper articles about hunting, fishing, food, and travel. In 2011, he hosted the eight-part Travel Channel series, The Wild Within.

Rinella was born in Twin Lake, Michigan on February 13, 1974. He was raised along with his two older brothers, Matthew and Daniel Rinella. He began hunting and fishing at a very young age, and was commercially trapping muskrats by the age of ten. Rinella graduated from Reeths Puffer High School in 1992. He finished his college degree at Grand Valley State University in December, 1996, after attending classes at Muskegon Community College and Lake Superior State University. Steven received a Masters of Fine Arts in 2000 from The University of Montana-Missoula.

The Scavenger’s Guide to Haute Cuisine was published in 2006 by Miramax Books. After stumbling upon Auguste Escoffier’s culinary milestone Le Guide Culinaire, Rinella embarked on a prolific quest to procure all the ingredients necessary to recreate an elaborate forty-five course meal using Escoffier’s recipes exclusively. Rinella accounts his pursuit of these ingredients as he traverses the country in a year long culinary and hunter-gatherer escapade. The documented adventures are visceral experiences that ultimately bring to light the modern disconnect between ourselves and what we eat. "Outdoorsman and travel writer Steven Rinella brings bohemian flair and flashes of poetic sensibility to his picaresque tale of a man, a cookbook and the culinary open road."