Foraging is not just a throwback to our hunter-gatherer past; it's a way to reconnect with the landscape. And Langdon Cook is not just your typical grocery cart-toting dad. For him, gourmet delicacies abound, free for the taking if we just open our eyes. As a result, he finds himself free-diving in icy Puget Sound in hopes of spearing a snaggletooth lingcod, armed with nothing more than a "Hawaiian sling." He bushwhacks through rugged mountain forests in search of edible mushrooms. He strings up a fly rod to chase after sea-run trout. He even pulls on the gardening gloves to collect stinging nettles. In wry, detailed prose, he traces his journey from wrangler of pre-packaged calories to connoisseur of coveted wild edibles. Structured around the seasons of the year, each chapter focuses on a specific food type and concludes with a recipe featuring the author's hard-won bounty, a savory stop to each adventure-filled morsel.
--This text refers to the
Hardcover
edition.
I write about the intersection of nature and food--in short, wild foods and foraging--and the fascinating characters who inhabit that intersection. This gives me a chance to follow all kinds of threads that intrigue me: natural foods, culinary trends, wildlife, environmental politics, outdoor sports, adventure travel, etc. My wife thinks it's all a racket--an excuse to bushwhack around the woods by day and put away obscene amounts of rich food and wine by night. I can't exactly argue with that view.
Really, though, my interest lies in the people who feel equally at home in both field and kitchen. In my first book, "Fat of the Land: Adventures of a 21st Century Forager," I go spearfishing for lingcod with a modern hunter-gatherer/English PhD; I hunt morel mushrooms with an Italian-American EPA administrator; and jig for squid on a city pier jammed with immigrants hooting and hollering in a dozen different tongues. Bottom line: Foraging is fun, reconnecting us to both the landscape and our fellow humans. Plus, a really good meal awaits. Each chapter concludes with a recipe.
My forthcoming book, "The Mushroom Hunters: On the Trail of an Underground America," is about the men and women--many of them immigrants from war-torn countries, migrant workers, or refugees from the Old Economy--who bring wild mushrooms to market. To write the book, I embedded myself in the itinerant subculture of wild mushroom harvesters, a traveling, carnivalesque, mostly hidden confederacy of treasure-seekers that follows the "mushroom trail" year-round, picking and selling the fungi that land on exclusive restaurant plates around the country. The book takes place over the course of several mushroom seasons and follows the triumphs and failures of a few characters, including an ex-logger trying to pay his bills and stay out of trouble; a restaurant cook turned mushroom broker trying to build a business; and a celebrated chef who picks wild mushrooms on the side to keep in touch with the land. "The Mushroom Hunters" hits the shelves in September, 2013.
What else? I've worked as a reporter, editor, and writer my entire career, for both Old and New Media. I took the plunge into full-time writing after a year spent living in a cabin off the grid with my wife and son. (I emerged from the woods with a book idea and a new daughter.) I live in Seattle with my family, where I teach foraging and cooking classes, write a regular column for Seattle Magazine, and contribute articles and essays to a variety of other print/web media.
