Stalking the Wild Asparagus

I was always interested in survival and eating wild foods and I tried several (with indifferent results) during my boy scout days. Thus, it was that "Stalking the Wild Asparagus" was a revelation to me when I first encountered it as a young man. Somebody else in the world was interested in eating wild plants! Quite a few somebodies, it developed, because this book ran through a lot of printings and Euell Gibbons became a folk hero and TV star. Gibbons identifies and discusses the culinary virtues of about 50 different wild plants and animals. Among the familiar plants he identifies are dandelions, cattails -- the "supermarket of the swamp" -- and daylilies. He tosses in a few animals worthy of pursuit and ingestion by the modern day hunter/gatherer: bluegills, turtles, frogs, and carp. One is immediately impressed that Gibbons knows what he is talking about. He tells you what you need to do with the plant or animal, gives you a recipe or two for its preparation, and adds a bit of personal experience and folklore about the plant. He even gives you menus for wild-food feasts. There is something of the primeval in the attraction of children to gathering their own food, even if is only raspberries growing beside a road. For a few, such as Gibbons, it becomes a lifelong passion. His strength as a writer is infectious enthusiasm. I usually find nature writers to be preachy and sanctimonious. Gibbons isn't. He seems impervious to the thought that he might be considered as crazy as a loon (not one of the animals he proposes for eating). He can say with a perfectly straight face, "Let's go nutting." "Stalking the Wild Asparagus" has found a permanent place on my bookshelf and due recognition as a nature classic. Smallchief

Euell Gibbons (1911-1975) had an adventurous life to say the least. His first intro to wild foods was due to his family's poverty when they lived in New Mexico. At 12 years old, Gibbons went out in the surrounding country-side to forage for edibles to help feed his family and a life-long love of wild food got off to a pragmatic start. One of his first discoveries was wild asparagus, hence the book title namesake. This book is lyrical, yet practical and covers a sizeable array of wild foods- location, preparation, uses, etc. Recipes are given all through the book as well as some medicinal use info. One of Gibbons' favorite plants was the Dandelion (Taraxacum officinale). He relates how the Dandelion has been one of humanities longest known and useful wild foods and medicines and laments the assault by lawn care chemical manufacturers in trying to demonize this beautiful, helpful gift from Nature. Gibbons traveled the world lecturing on the benefits of wild foods and was often seen on popular talk shows along with becoming a pitch-man for Post Grape Nut Cereal commercials where he treated America to hilarious daily line: "...taste like wild hickory nuts!". Gibbon's came across like a modern-day cross between Mark Twain, Will Rogers and Henry David Thoreau. Those familiar with Thoreau's recently published last manuscript, "Wild Fruits" will see the close resemblance to "Stalking the Wild Asparagus"- both now classics and useful guides to Nature's cornucopia of wild edible gifts.

Toward the end of ASPARAGUS, Euell Gibbons relates stopping during a stroll with his wife "at a couple of blooming elder bushes and collecting a bag of elder blow with next morning's breakfast in mind". Clearly, he has a recipe for this strange woodland product, elder blow. That's just one of the strengths of this very strong volume: plenty of recipes and tips to make wild fare taste good. Unlike today's whole food zealot, Gibbons doesn't hesitate to add refined food such as butter or bacon or sugar to his natural bounty. He is equally authoritative on cooking as on gathering, giving clear steps on making everything from stuffed grape leaves to fried frog's legs to Elder Blow Fritters.But for me the real charm of Gibbons is his evocation of how we ate in the past; far, far in the past when all food was wild food. He speculates that mankind has probably eaten "many millions of tons more of acorns...than of the cereal grains". Fascinating, when you consider that no groceries now carry this formerly prevalent staple, as though it were as useless as an 8-track tape. Gibbons reminds that dandelions were prescribed by primitive doctors to ward off diseases caused by vitamin deficiency long before we had any concept of a vitamin. He is mindful, as he plucks wild grape leaves, that the Vikings reported the presence of grapes on our continent a thousand years ago, and thought that important enough to name it Vinland.His style is what one would expect from an amiable, erudite grandfather, a member of one of the last generations that saw starvation in America, and that knew the delight of tasting fresh spring greens after a long winter without vegetables. His type is often dismissed as corny and hopelessly outdated because they persist in old habits that have been rendered obsolete by refrigeration and truck farms. But his type pays no attention to such ridicule, focussing instead on the joys of hunting and gathering--not just for the meat and free vegetables, but also the pleasure of a "creative protest against the artificiality of our daily lives" or the pleasure of observing a "child's unspoiled sense of wonder" at "living, at least in part, as our more primitive forebears did". Reading ASPARAGUS is like watching such a child.

Euell Gibbons became a household word after the 60's because he did a famous cereal commercial "Tastes like wild hickory nuts." Now most of us have never chewed on hickory nuts, but we were captivated by Euell's down-home charm. And during his heyday, we were getting back to nature, being hippies, reading the Foxfire books and re-acquainting ourselves with nature after the cosmic-rocket styles of the 50's. This book is fun to read because of Euell's way of writing as if he were walking beside you in a field, pointing out the bounties of nature to you personally. His praise of the humble cat-tail, seen in any marsh or even in highway medians is nothing short of a miracle. I think he could survive on cat-tails alone for weeks.Perhaps Euell felt so strongly about wild foods because as a teen during the Depression in the Texas dustbowl, he provided for the family during a particularly lean time, by gathering wild foods to supplement their diet of mostly pinto beans. He wandered many states later on in his life, finally settling in Camp Hill, PA with his wife Freda, but he never lost his love of wild foods and his feeling that, no one need be hungry if he is a friend of nature. This book is especially poignant if you have read Into the Wild by Krakauer, the account of a young man who strikes off into the wilds of Alaska to test his mettle, and perishes from a fatal mistake in botany. I recommend all of Euell Gibbon's books, but especially this one, as it was written straight from his heart. After 30 years, it still never fails to enchant.

This book ushered in a new era. Unlike most previous works by naturalists which simply inspired or informed, this one moved many to action -- inducing them to "get back to nature" in a very real and practical way. Not to conquer it, per the phony outdoorsmen works galore, nor to simply stand in awe of it, putting it on a pedestal as if it were some kind of prima donna (as do many of the phony environmentalists of today, most of whom have not so much as camped a single night in the woods). But, simply, TO BE ONE WITH NATURE! I believe this unique kind of motivation ensued because Gibbons spoke with a friend's voice, a companion's voice, and yet with the voice of authority. Indeed, you never doubted that he was the master of his field. In fact, his skill with the wilderness was something he had honed all his life, even back as a youngster when he once saved his family from starvation by bringing home a bushel basket of wild goodies from the woods. If only people would sit down and read what Gibbons said about the absolute necessity of preserving wild lands, and would really start to speak up and to do something about it, maybe the greedy land "developers" who have run so amok to the point of utter land rape can yet be stopped. (Imagine the mental gymnastics that one must have to go through to justify adopting such a shameful and cowardly profession as land developer!) Both this book by Gibbons and his many sequels bear testimony as well to the man's magnificent literary skills (he had set out to become a novelist, but his wife convinced him to effectuate the first rule of writing: "Write about what you know.") It is a task that he performed well, writing with apparent ease and putting to mere paper the very secrets of his heart. Finally, Gibbons' works impress upon readers his love for his fellow man -- a love that may have eventually killed him, for he died in 1975 of a heart attack brought on, we are informed by his friends, by his overcommitment to inquirers, fans, and charitable organizations. (His inability to quit smoking well into his later years probably didn't help much either.) It is doubtful that people will forget Euell; from his witty banter with Johnny Carson on The Tonite Show, to his breakfast-cereal commercials, to the many spoofs of him that appeared on the Carol Burnett Show, his likeness and quaintness are sure to be perpetuated in people's minds. Let's just hope his message starts getting there, too! Treat the earth like the Indians did, he urged, utilizing the land's resources but being ever careful to respect them and to renew them; for once we leave off reverential interraction with the natural environment, we lose our appreciation of it. And that's our swan song for sure. It was Thoreau who said: "In wildness is the preservation of the world." But it was Gibbons who brought that maxim to everyman, by exemplifying it