Squirrel Pie (and other stories)

The ultimate locavore guide--an engaging food memoir of foraging from forest, field, and stream, from the Andes to the Arctic--with recipes and illustrations.Award-winning writer and journalist Elisabeth Luard is one of the most knowledgeable foragers on the planet, as well as one of the foodie sphere's most entertaining voices. Her worldwide travels--from the Andes to the Outer Hebrides, from the deserts of India to the Arctic tundra--have meant she has tasted some of the most extraordinary ingredients the natural world has to offer. In this enchanting food memoir, she shares the knowledge gained from a lifetime's worth of experience foraging in the wild. Illustrated with Elisabeth's own beautiful black-and-white line drawings, Squirrel Pie is a charming blend of anecdotes and practical advice, with a sprinkling of recipes (including the eponymous pie). The twenty chapters include musings on the myth and lore of alliums, an investigation into how to cook a fiddlehead and other edible shoots, and an exposé of health-giving wild foods. If you haven't yet stumbled upon a skein of golden chanterelles under the moss in a Welsh valley or tasted a truffle just lifted from the red earth of a Tuscan hillside or followed a hunter in search of dinner through the blueberry barrens of Maine, these stories will take you there.