Half Algerian and born in a modest tenement -- a pied-noir in a pied-a-terre -- Reese Deveaux moved to Asia in the 1960s to study writing about food at the foot of the famed Sir Albert Guruswamy, who ruled the Asian culinary roost for decades as the restaurant critic for the now defunct Asiaweek Magazine. 

Although Deveaux is particularly fond of veal sweetbreads in all their permutations, he describes with glee such adventures as sharing a haunch of hare with Sir Albert at the Battle of Niblett Pass. With nothing but a bayonet with which to skin and quarter it, nothing but a flare with which to cook it, and nothing but gunpowder with which to flavor it, it was a repast for the ages, Deveaux says.