Chef Martin Picard. Don't call him a wild man. (Canadian Press)

"It would be best not to open your interview with ...the squirrel", I was advised by Martin Picard's publicist. "It just might set the wrong tone."

The Quebec chef's frustration towards some media stems from a particular, perhaps unfair, interest in some of the more adventurous offerings in his new, 386-page tome of a cookbook, A Pied De Cochon Sugar Shack.

The oft-maligned, bushy-tailed rodent is up to its pesky ways again, triggering some mild pushback toward Picard's second collection of recipes, along with its patriotic counterpart, the beaver. Why?

Picard serves up panko-crusted squirrel as a sushi dish, saving the paws, tail and head for presentation. He stuffs butchered beavers with their own tails, dressing them with oyster mushrooms and cognac sauce. All laid out in glossy, coffee table book format so you too can try it at home. That's only IF you're into haute Canadiana cuisine. Wink!

If this has got your stomach churning and your animal rights antenna tweaking, consider this: Picard is a chef, and a celebrated one -- a hard-working creator and an experimental innovator. A steward of the sugar shack, an awakener of tired traditions. An ambassador for Canadian gastronomy as its most savage, indigenous, and authentic.

But also at its most honoured and revered. It's legal to trap and eat what he does. Maybe it's his sense of humour that leaves a bad taste in your mouth.

Regardless of how one feels about his from-forest-to-fryer approach, his love for his work is evident. Did you know that it took 380 litres of maple syrup just to test the recipes for this cookbook? Have you seen the delectable mile-high mille-feuille? What about the flaming Caf Saint-Benot with maple nuggets? What about how his seasonal sugar shack restaurant near Montreal is reserved solid for the next four years?

In Picard's words, "At the end, you're tired. But you live things nobody could live." He explained how much he loves working with animals from the woods around a sugar shack, a place where he spent so much time as a boy. "It's more like a genetic thing," he said.

And so we segue into the salty issue of the "ingredient" provocateur.

"You have to understand that I'm a cook," he says. "Tasting and having those kinds of meats are part of my life, you know?"

I'm satisfied with that.

--- Laura Thompson