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John Folse’s latest culinary tome, After the Hunt: Louisiana’s Authoritative Collection of Wild Game & Game Fish Cookery, is a whopping 870 pages. That’s 18 more pages than his best-selling 2004 release, The Encyclopedia of Cajun & Creole Cuisine, which weighs in at an impressive 10 pounds, 8 ounces.

Local chefs may need a forklift to get this one off of the bookshelf, but once they do the variety of recipes—including everything from wild boar to squirrel to squab as well as pages of historical images and gorgeous food photography—will delight even the pickiest of home cooks, even those who cringe at the thought of having to skin their own dinner.

After the Hunt is the eighth cookbook in Folse’s Cajun/Creole series and contains more than 500 game and game fish recipes that accurately portray Louisiana’s claim as a sportsman’s paradise.

“During book signings last Christmas I was searching for a Louisiana game cookbook and found the shelves sorely lacking in options,” Folse says. “At that moment the concept for After the Hunt was born and photography began the next week.”

Much like his all-encompassing encyclopedia, After the Hunt provides readers with a well-researched historical culinary journey. This time he chronicles man’s hunting history from ancient times to American colonization and touches on hunting’s storied past as a revered sport for the noble class.