Winner of the John Avery Award at the André Simon Awards 2022
'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.
Mo Wilde has had a life-long love affair with plants. She teaches foraging and is a founder member of the Association of Foragers, a member of the British Mycological Society and a Fellow of the Linnean Society. She also has a Masters degree in Herbal Medicine and runs a clinic specialising in herbal treatments for diseases. Monica lives in a self-built wooden home on 4 acres in central Scotland that she shares with 259 species of plants, 83 of insects, 62 bird species, 51 fungi, 13 wild mammals, 3 ferrets, 2 humans and 1 elderly cat.
Mo Wilde has had a life-long love affair with plants. She teaches foraging and is a founder member of the Association of Foragers, a member of the British Mycological Society and a Fellow of the Linnean Society. She also has a Masters degree in Herbal Medicine and runs a clinic specialising in herbal treatments for diseases. Monica lives in a self-built wooden home on 4 acres in central Scotland that she shares with 259 species of plants, 83 of insects, 62 bird species, 51 fungi, 13 wild mammals, 3 ferrets, 2 humans and 1 elderly cat. "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." 'This special and magical book has changed the way I see the world' 'With the seductively readable style that comes only from the light poetism of wisdom and knowledge speaking from the heart, Monica Wilde relates the story of a year eating nothing but wild food. The result is a masterly work of information and erudition, one from which I am still buzzing with the pleasure of its reading.' 'Mo Wilde's story of foraging for food and medicine is an inspiration to us all. She brings home the need so many of us have fo
