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The Wilderness Cure Hardcover – 23 Jun. 2022
Mo Wilde (Author) See search results for this author |
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'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.
- Print length368 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherSimon & Schuster UK
- Publication date23 Jun. 2022
- Dimensions13.5 x 2.65 x 21.6 cm
- ISBN-101398508632
- ISBN-13978-1398508637
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Review
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.” ― TLS
'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.' -- John Wright, author of the Forager’s Calendar
'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 for the wild redeemer as a part of our diet and our lives.' -- Stephen Harrod Buhner, author of the bestselling Herbal Antibiotics and Earth Grief: The Journey Into and Through Ecological Loss
'Fascinating, inspiring, brave and beautifully written - all is not lost.' -- Gill Meller, author of Outside: Recipes for a Wilder Way of Eating
'Mo Wilde has retraced [our ancestors] steps. … A delightfully humble, funny and wise guide, [Mo] leaves tentative footprints for us to follow. Perhaps if we do that, we can all make it home in time.' -- Miles Irving, author of the Forager Handbook, Ebury press, and host of the World Wild podcast
'Mo Wilde’s year is an inspiration. What an incredible woman and an even more impressive book.' -- Cat Thomson, The Scotsman food and drink writer
'This book is utterly fascinating, and written in a wildly refreshing manner. Though embarking on such a wholesome journey, Mo doesn’t sugar-coat the difficulties however, she also celebrates the many positive sides, [offering] advice on how we could better live, without ever preaching.' -- Michael Perry, ‘The Plant Geek’, Garden Media Guild award winner and author of Hortus Curious
'The person who returns [from this journey] is not the same. Something else has returned with her, something that now lives in the world and is food for the soul’s journey.' -- Julie McIntyre, author of The Confluence of Gaia, Plant Medicine and the Human Soul
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Product details
- Publisher : Simon & Schuster UK (23 Jun. 2022)
- Language : English
- Hardcover : 368 pages
- ISBN-10 : 1398508632
- ISBN-13 : 978-1398508637
- Dimensions : 13.5 x 2.65 x 21.6 cm
- Best Sellers Rank: 5,621 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- 5 in Environmental Philosophy
- 7 in Biological Science
- 8 in Biodiversity
- Customer reviews:
About the author

Monica ‘Mo’ Wilde is the author of The Wilderness Cure: Ancient Wisdom in a Modern World. Mo is a forager, research herbalist, author and ethnobotanist. She has been teaching foraging since 2005 but has had a lifelong passion for plants. Mo has a Masters degree in herbal medicine, is a Fellow of the Linnean Society, a member of the Association of Foragers, a member of the British Mycological Society and a member of the International Lyme and Associated Diseases Society (ILADS). Monica Wilde lives in Scotland in a self-built eco house, encouraging medicinal and foraging species to thrive in a wild, teaching garden. She also teaches and lectures on wild foods, plants, fungi and algae.
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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.
I thoroughly enjoyed this book, not only because of my personal love of nature and foraging, but because there are stories intertwined through the pages. A wonderful birth story, tales of community, travelling adventures. All with much reflection and reverence for our ancestors, our rich history of food and culture and a deep respect for gaia.
What Mo achieved in her wild food year was incredible and there are lessons to be learned there for all of us. I am deeply impressed by her commitment and discipline, especially while still running a business and clinic. Absolute dedication to her craft.
My takeaway from the book was an affirmation for what I strive to do in my own life. Not an entirely wild food lifestyle, but one that embraces foraging, growing my own, eating organic and using lots of "extras" such as seaweeds, hawthorn ketchup (thanks for the recipe Mo), and wild culinary herbs for both a flavour boost and a health boost.
You don't need to be a forager or a foodie to enjoy this book though. If you are human and you eat then there's plenty in this book for you that's relevant, interesting and enticing.
Its not just about food, its about our relationship with nature and our place in this world. Embracing nature through wild foods opens the senses, enriches our experience and engages us fully. You can almost hear the mushrooms talking, not because you are crazy, but because you are connected and part of this wonderful great whole.
I look forward to hearing more from Mo and am particularly interested to see how her microbiome testing worked out too. I'm sure there are more stories to come and I look forward to any follow ups from The Wilderness Cure.