Book Review from The Beard: Stalking the Wild Asparagus

We can probably all look back and see some small event or another that seemed  accidental but that ended up having an enormous effect on which side of life we woke up on.  When I was in junior high my family moved out to the country.  One of our neighbors was this radical backward girl who loved plants.  I also happened to love plants and thus began our friendship.  Chris later got me a job at the greenhouse where she worked.  Then she got me into a master gardening class that had been too full to register for.  We were the only ones under 50 in the place and so we were the class celebrities.  Over a decade ago Chris gave me an old ratty looking book from the 70’s called Stalking the Wild Asparagus by Euell Gibbons. I confess that I didn’t read it until recently. 

I was completely caught off guard.  I opened it randomly as I was unpacking a box full of books and turned to a page with the title:  The Cult of the Mycophagists [!] (edible fungi)  What follows is a fascinating tutorial about cultivating a taste for, locating, identifying and preparing wild foraged mushrooms.  One of the things that is most valuable about the book is that it is written with such a compelling conversational tone.  It reads like a novel you can’t wait to get back to.  When you finish a section you will feel like Euell is an eccentric member of the family, an Uncle perhaps.

Uncle Euell is really adamant about his message that when tasting wild food, it should not be compared to familiar foods.  Instead it should be appreciated for the various subtleties that make it unique.  For example in the mushroom chapter he urges: “let us approach each new edible fungus as a new food, and let it stand or fall on its own merits.  Let’s not be guilty of condemning a mushroom for its difference from the cultivated variety without judging whether that difference is good or bad.”

There are numberless fascinating chapters on the edible surprises growing all around us.  The ones we have tried are: dandelions, hemerocalis (daylilies), wild apples and crab apples, Huckleberries of course, wild cherries, allium (wild onion) and several others.  Other chapters include: The Acorn: ancient food of man, the Jerusalem Artichoke, Supermarket of the Swamps: the Common Cattail, Beating the Pigs to the Pigweeds (which one of my pioneer ancestors subsisted on for an entire season until he could harvest some of his cultivated crops.) 

Mr. Gibbons was a true Progressive Pioneer.  He was also a hobo, boat builder and school teacher.  It turns out that “Stalking the Wild Asparagus” is the father of many movements, and that Uncle Euell still has many devoted fans long after his death.  You can still see him in a Grape Nuts commercial on You Tube.  That is pretty big-time.

Making an unusual friend in my youth led to a lifetime love of Mother Nature’s growing laboratory.  I felt a real kinship with this author.  This book ended up being a time bomb.  When I finally opened it, it  blew my mind.  Maybe  the simple act of reading it will have a life altering effect for you? Thanks, Chris!