I found this book to be interesting and quite informative.
Makes you think about how nature really does provide, if you know how and where to look for it.
A good memoir, but I think I would have liked pictures included to show the plants
Thank you netgalley

This book is more of a memoir of the author's experiment of eating only what she could forage for a whole year, than I'd been expecting. I'm not a forager, although I have been known to pick the odd blackberry or three, but I was interested in the premise. It very much involved returning to the way our hunter-gatherer ancestors used to live, and much of the book consisted of detailed descriptions of what she foraged and how she cooked and prepared the food she found.

Foraging isn't for everyone - it can't be, because if we all did it, we'd soon strip the countryside bare. However, it did make me think more consciously about my food choices in the supermarket, and how I tend to stick to the same basic foodstuffs week in week out, paying little or no attention to what is in season.

I won't be using the book as an instruction manual - and that's not what is intended to be - but I will be picking snippets out of it, which hopefully will improve my mindfulness, health and wellbeing.

Mo Wilde sets off on a noble path in The Wilderness Cure, exploring how we can be less “divorced from our annual food cycle”. The personal stories and reflections throughout complement the more educational parts of the book and the whole thing is rooted in a strong sense of place. Food, plants and landscape are deftly brought to life, evoking a sensory response without relying on overwrought descriptions or cliches.

The compelling links to the climate crisis could elevate this book from one about personal development to one about community, systemic injustices and broader societal change as well. Wild food is given the potential to move from a quaint pastime to an act of activism, but this angle gets a bit lost in a book that is trying to do a great deal.

The vague impetus for beginning on Black Friday lends a hastiness to the challenge and the book feels very much of a particular time, in a potentially distracting way. I empathise with the writer needing this challenge to keep going during the pandemic. However, it feels like a series of social media posts or blogs which one would have followed intently during lockdown but which haven't been sufficiently shaped into a book. To my taste, the daily journal would benefit from being broken up, perhaps punctuating the diary entries with info boxes, recipes etc.

Overall there are many note-worthy qualities to this book - not least the elegant descriptions - but for me it doesn’t reach its full potential.

Mo Wilde sets herself the challenge during Winter in Scotland of only living on foraged food for one year.

This is an utterly fascinating look on what living on foraged food actually looks like, as well as being very thought provoking on how our diet impacts the earth.

Whilst foraging is not for me, learning how Mo Wilde eats, where she finds food and the time it takes is really interesting. She is obviously very knowledgeable and aware of her body and it’s needs.

I liked that it is set out in almost diary format, not standard chapters. I also really enjoyed that general day to day life is included too.

It has left me thinking about my families diet and what I can do to reduce our footprint further.

Although I found it a fascinating read, some parts did feel a bit repetitive.

THE WILDERNESS CURE is a timely and inspiring memoir that explores a deeper relationship between humans and nature, and reminds us of the important lessons we’ve forgotten from our past. I found this a captivating and interesting read.

Although fascinating, this wasn’t exactly what I was expecting from the title. I found it read very much like a foraging diary lacking in reflective insight in parts.

The book highlights how the land can provide for us and how we have lost touch with the simple nuances that make life so amazing and fascinatingly.

I wish there had been an identification section at the beginning or end of each season, with illustrations, this would add to the usability of the book and show mere mortals like myself, lacking in forging knowledge but for the basics of elder, samphire and blackberries, how to use what the author has used to sustain them self.

A highly interesting read!

This was such a beautifully descriptive and provactive read that really got me thinking. I have always loved the outdoors and always thought there is something magical about nature and so I loved this book. This was such a well researched book that was full of rich imagery. I loved it.

Mo Wilde decides, as a committed forager, to live 'off the land' for a year from Black Friday. That's it, that's the premise. And what a wild ride it is, too. It really is a fascinating journey, written beautifully by Wilde about the bodily effects, as well as the trials faced by foraging during different times of the year in Scotland. You have to take your hat off to someone who can go through the various stages of what amounts, at times, to be starvation; who was once a vegetarian, forced, of course by circumstance to eat meat and who manages to make the recipes sound delicious. I learned a lot through reading this book, and it was compelling, too, to continue reading to find out whether this project is a success, and the effects thereof. I'm not saying, you have to read it. And you should read it, anyway.

Highly recommended. My thanks to Netgalley for the early copy.

Written in 'diary' style, The Wilderness Cure provides insight into wild food and foraging in seasonal, sustainable way.
This book will appeal to those who wish to shift their eating habits for the better.
Well researched and based on daily living practices

I found I enjoyed this book a lot more than I thought I would.
Coloured by the author’s wit, fascination and enthusiasm for foraging and actual attempt at accomplishing her year long goal, the book held my attention straight away. And I felt an instant connection with the author and her ‘jump in at the deep end’ kind of style to confronting her goal.
Apart from the ‘brief history of food’ introduction, the book is written as diary log entries, filled with really fascinating details of the foraged food resources around all of us. I made lots of notes on what to look out for in my wood or hedgerow as well as considering alternative options to my present diet.

This book is a real page turner and I will definitely be recommending it to friends.

This book was a little different to what i expected but an is an excellent, informative and lovely read. It's diary like, and is packed with useful knowledge and a perfect read for a cozy day in. Would definitely recommend to those interested in health or nature.

A clear and instructive introduction to foraging, perfect for beginners or the curious. Those more experienced may find a rekindled joy in the art of foraging from the memoir aspect.

Thank you, NetGalley, for letting me read this book!

Well, I loved it.

Mo does a crazy thing. She decides, on Black Friday, no less, to live off wild food for a year. It's a way of connecting more deeply with the natural world and stepping away from consumerism.

It's fascinating to watch. Winter - with no special preparation, no stores - is tough. This is Scotland, there are limited resources, and yet, somehow, she makes it through. Spring is easier, summer - surprisingly - is hard again - autumn is bountiful.

That journey through the seasons is one facet. Mo's musings on foraging as a lifestyle, on our disconnect from nature, on the deepening of her connection with the natural world - these add real depth - and threw up lots of things to ponder on. Her insistence on food being interesting and enjoyable is inspirational. Her changing body - inside and out - is another dimension. We eat the same diet pretty much all year round - maybe more in the way of comfort food in the winter, maybe more in the way of salads in the summer. We eat too many carbs and far too much sugar. Mo's diet is much more dependent on the seasons: gorging on fresh greens in the spring, lots and lots of funghi, finding a place for meat.

The only thing missing was a recipe section. Maybe Mo will give us a recipe book next?

I'm going to read this again. And maybe again after that.

My thanks to Netgalley and the brilliant Mo Wilde for the ARC of this book - don't worry, I'll be buying a few copies anyway!
An immensely readable book, whether you're sold on the idea of foraging, or whether you think it's for crazy hippies. Mo Wilde certainly isn't crazy - the only impulsive thing she does is start her year-long challenge of living solely off of foraged food at the tail end of November in Scotland, and even then, she is far better prepared than other people might be, with a larder full of nutritious dried herbs and preserves. She very sensibly sets herself allowable parameters, and sends off quarterly samples to a lab to check the effects on her gut biome and other health markers.
But she is a clinical herbalist by trade, so she is quite aware of eg. how certain minor problems like dry skin might be affected by a shortage of magnesium, and what potential steps she might take to alleviate the issue.
The almost-daily catalogue of her diet, and how she acquires it is interspersed with her meditations on the seasons, local wildlife and plants, archaeological and anthropological studies on present-day and ancient hunter-gatherer societies, her activities during this time (including a 36-hour home birth, a holiday in Orkney, and a trip to Eastern Europe), and the inevitable lament over the destruction we have done to our wonderful planet.
There are plenty of foraging books out there already, and the internet is full of sites on the identification, and culinary and medicinal uses of the different plants, but what makes this different is Wilde's willing self-experimentation, her humour, her honesty (my favourite the time she broke down and drove to the local chipper, only to find it closed), and her generosity. She shows us the abundant diversity that still exists in our woodlands and waste ground, despite our attempt to concrete or tar over everything, and how our lives could literally be transformed with even just a small bit of attention to the world that surrounds us.

What a great book! It really made me think about the amount of processed food that we eat. In these stretched economic times we’ll all be forced to forage soon!!

This was a really good and very informative book. I enjoyed it very much. It is well written and well laid out

A compulsively readable, engaging and compelling book about a woman who decides to spend an entire year eating only wild food - what she can forage. And the challenge begins at the end of 2020 just as Scotland is heading into winter...

I think a lot of us would like to think we eat seasonally and locally, but this book showed me that there's a lot more I could be doing to tread more lightly on the earth. One scene from the book has had a profound impact on me - when Mo floats the idea of making a video to encourage people to eat organic food. She proposes making a gorgeous dinner full of organic produce, then placing it in front of people who aren't convinced of the benefits organic food, along with a shot glass of the legal amounts of pesticide and herbicide that you'd typically ingest with non-organic food, to pour over their food like you would a salad dressing. What a brilliant idea. I think such a video would go viral and have an incredible impact. Mo, if you're reading, crowd-fund for this video to be made!

The majority of the book reads very well and the author is clearly incredibly knowledgeable about wild food, herbs and natural remedies, the detail of which I really enjoyed. It lost its focus occasionally and drifted into repetition at times, but this is a very minor complaint.

Highly recommended to anyone interested in foraging, eating locally (that's an understatement!) and the natural world. Mo's passion and commitment is obvious and admirable in this very enjoyable and, I think, important book.

With thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for an ARC.

A bit like the curate’s egg, really. Great concept, and she stuck to it, so for those interested in the kind of hunter gatherer lifestyle in a northern hemisphere it would be very educational.

However, too much of it was taken up of descriptions of her meat, squirrel and fish eating for my taste. I didn’t somehow expect those included in the concept of foraging.

She clearly knows how to identify plants and particularly fungi, and certainly tasted and put to use lots of seeds, leaves and other parts of weeds not many of us would have considered. And she did a lot or research along the way, so full credit for that.

Mo Wilde has written a detailed diary style account of her year living on foraged foods. This book has shown us just how easy it is to rely upon food , the ease & availability. Yet things are harder when you are living in lockdown & restrictions are in place and all food is in short supply. Mo’s account of the foods she is able to forage seasonally shows us that it is possible , sometimes not very exciting & a lot of hard work .
I really enjoyed this book it shows that there is food available if you are willing to put in the time, patience & work to source it & know exactly what and where to look.

Foraging is an epigenetic Post-it note on our generation that we all share. It defines us as simply 'human'.

It had been on the cards for a while but it was the week-long consumer binge which pushed Mo Wilde into beginning her year of eating only wild food. The end of November, particularly in Central Scotland was perhaps not the best time to start, in a world where the normal sores had been exacerbated by climate change, Brexit and a pandemic. Wilde had a few advantages: the area around her was a known habitat with a variety of terrains. She had electricity which allowed her to run a fridge, freezer and dehydrator. She had a car - and fuel. Most importantly, she had shelter: this was not a plan to live wild just to live off its produce.

Wilde also had a background as a herbalist. To quote from her website: Mo Wilde is a forager, research herbalist, author and ethnobotanist, with a Masters degree in Herbal Medicine. She has been teaching foraging formally since 2005 and was a founding member of the Association of Foragers. Monica is a Fellow of the Linnean Society, a Member of the British Mycological Society and a Member of the International Lyme and Associated Diseases Society (ILADS). She practices at Napiers Lyme Clinic specialising in integrative medicine in the treatment of Lyme disease, lectures in herbal medicine and teaches foraging courses. This was not some innocent setting off on a crack-brained project and possibly putting themselves at risk.

Many people claim to eat seasonally and from local produce (I would have done so myself until I really thought about it) but it's virtually impossible. Where do you get your carbohydrates between January and July? No one 'diet' is going to work and eating only wild food which you have collected yourself is relentless hard work and requires constant planning. If you're thinking of picking up this book for tips on where to find the best chanterelles or for recipes for wild mushroom soup and blackberry jam, then you're going to be sorely disappointed. Many of the ingredients which you would require are simply not available to the wild forager.

I may sometimes forget where I've put my car keys or what I came into the room for, but, like every good forager, I never forget where I once found food.

What began as pleasant and distracting walks accompanied by a little light foraging, soon evolved into targetted missions to collect what was required. There's a necessity to ensure that there's a balance of nutrients and that there's a reasonable return on the effort invested in collecting food - calories expended against calories collected. Wilde lost 31 kilos over her year and whilst she wouldn't recommend the experiment purely as a means of losing weight, she was delighted with the result in terms of how she looked and felt. Her dress size had shrunk from 18/20 to 10/12 but in the long term, it would be essential to balance the calories collected in an hour with the effort expended. Also, Wilde had previously been vegetarian and there was a noticeable effect on the gut when it became necessary to eat meat which had to be taken into consideration.

There's a careful and considered balance of scientific information and common sense - in much the same way that Wilde used stone tools to skin a deer and also used a dishwasher. She's pragmatic but focused on the aim of the year. She had a couple of 'lapses' but they were very minor. It wasn't an easy read but it was very readable and most enjoyable. I'd like to thank the publishers for letting Bookbag have a review copy.

I will shelves this between 21 Lessons for the 21st Century by Yuval Noah Harari and How to Love Animals in a Human-Shaped World by Henry Mance.