Winner of the John Avery Award at the André Simon Awards 2022
'A triumph' The TLS
'This special and magical book has changed the way I see the world' Dan Saladino
'Inspiration and delight sparkle from every page … This book [is] a revelation of joy to the general reader for whom wild food is another country' John Wright, author of the River Cottage handbooks
A captivating and lyrical journey into our ancestral past, through what and how we eat.
Mo Wilde made a quiet but radical pledge: to live only off free, foraged food for an entire year. In a world disconnected from its roots, eating wild food is both culinary and healing, social and political. Ultimately, it is an act of love and community. Using her expert knowledge of botany and mycology, Mo follows the seasons to find nutritious food from hundreds of species of plants, fungi and seaweeds, and in the process learns not just how to survive, but how to thrive. Nourishing her body and mind deepens her connection with the earth – a connection that we have become estranged from but which we all, deep down, hunger for.
This hunger is about much more than food. It is about accepting and understanding our place in a natural network that is both staggeringly complex and beautifully simple. The Wilderness Cure is a diary of a wild experiment; a timely and inspiring memoir which explores a deeper relationship between humans and nature, and reminds us of the important lost lessons from our past.
Industry Reviews
“The Wilderness Cure, her diary of the year, is many things: an unpreachy manifesto, a recipe book, a celebration of friendship, a passionate love song to the wild, a textbook of empathy, a cabinet of ecological curiosities, a masterclass in how to tread softly, a survival guide, a journal of quiet epiphanies, a primer on the art of relationship, a meditation on the significance of mycelial networks, a map of the collective unconscious, an impeccably researched account of many of the medical perils of modernity, an inquiry into the healing power of the natural world and an evolving reflection on what it means to be a human…
The Wilderness Cure is a triumph: brave, candid, kind, heartbroken by our stupidity and rapacity, suffused with the pain of bereavement at our loss of relationship with the non-human world, but suffused too with hope. For there is a way back. We’d better find it soon.”
