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 As an adult Euell Gibbons
lived in many states including California, Washington,
Hawaii, New Jersey, Indiana, and finally in Pennsylvania. On
his visit to Hawaii from 1947 to 1951, he met and married
Freda Fryer. E u
e l l
longed to be a fiction writer but evidently could not get
published.
During his lifelong travels
he was a cowboy, hobo, carpenter, surveyor, boat builder,
beachcomber, newspaperman, school teacher, farmer, and an
educator. All along, building on the wild food foundation he
got from his mother. My impression, from his writings, is
that he learned a lot from his hobo days. Those days where
he foraged both from society and nature to acquire his
sustenance.
He would visit libraries to
research wild foods. He would become acquainted with people
in small towns and ask them about their uses of wild foods.
He would seek out local experts and exchange information.
And finally, he would experiment and invent new ways to
process wild foods. His family, friends, and neighbors were
the taste-testing guinea pigs for new recipes he would
invent.
His first book in 1962,
"Stalking the Wild Asparagus", became an instant hit. The
content evidently touching a chord with a burgeoning
back-to-nature movement. This and his next two books
(See
reviews of Euell's best three books) were packed with
information on how to find, gather, and prepare wild foods.
Many magazine articles followed, either written by or about
E u e l
l. He wrote for Organic Gardening and Farming,
National Geographic, and National Wildlife Magazines, among
others.
Euell Gibbons helped found,
and was a charter member of such groups as the National Wild
Food Association (West Virginia), Foraging Friends
(Chicago), and I'm sure many others. By 1971, E u
e l l's
books became more philosophical and
less about wild foods - all still good reads. Even though he
had only a sixth-grade education,
E u
e l l
was awarded an honorary doctorate
from Susquehanna University.
As he received more
literary notoriety, E u e
l l
became somewhat of a celebrity. He made appearances
on talk shows (The Johnny Carson Show), variety shows (The
Sonny & Cher show), and television commercials for Post
Grape Nuts cereal. E u e l
l displayed a great sense of
humor. At one point, to everyone's surprise, he began eating
a wooden plaque awarded him on the Sonny and Cher television
show. The plaque was really a prop made out of wafer cookies
or some other edible substance.
This fame was a
double-edged sword. On the one hand it had the effect of
exposing more people to the topic of wild foods. On the
other, E
u e
l l
became ridiculed by many of his readers/followers who
felt like he sold out to big business and the commercial
world. To many, he was reduced from a respected naturalist
icon to a laughable pitch-man for a cereal company. To those
in the know, however, he remained a respected
naturalist.
His last residence was in
Beavertown, Pennsylvania, where he lived with Freda until
his death on December 29, 1975. He was 64. Euell died of a
heart attack. It was probably a result of cardiovascular
disease complicating a pre-existing condition called Marfan
syndrome. Marfan syndrome would have made his aorta more
susceptible to a catastrophic bursting. Euell had a smoking
habit and regularly, as can be seen in his writings, added
saturated fats (bacon grease, butter, egg yolks) to his
vegetables. In E
u e
l l's
day it was not unusual to smoke cigarettes or to add
high amounts of saturated fat to foods. These risk factors
combined with his hard life and lack of exercise in his
later years (arthritis pain limited his movement)
undoubtedly contributed to his death.
E
u e
l l's
legacy is the treasure of lifelong experiences and
knowledge he left us regarding foraging and unusual culinary
delights. Boston University is maintaining a collection of
his personal journal entries and notes, and Alan Hood has
reprinted his first three books.
E
u e
l l,
more than anyone else in North American history, got
people thinking, talking, and eating wild foods. Many wild
food writers give us the menu,
E u
e l l
gave us the meal.
__________
Author's note #1 (March 7, 1999): The information in this
article was compiled from obituaries, John McPhee's
remembrance, book-jacket biographies, personal reports, and
from my interpretation of his fame and writings. I,
unfortunately, never got to meet Mr. Gibbons and hope that
the information here is representative and accurate.
Author's note #2 (July 17, 2008): Since writing this
article, several of Euell's surviving relatives have
contacted me. All expressed appreciation for its overall
affectionate tone and accuracy. None have contradicted any
of the content.
Author's note #3 (July 17, 2008): Detail on cause of
death is included here to squelch rumors. Fabricated causes
of death typically form for deceased food, nutrition, or
diet celebrities. Rumors I personally heard ranged from
eating a poisonous plant to choking on a wild food. I felt
that facts must be available somewhere to counter the
rumors. And while the information I present may disappoint
some (who wants to hear that a naturalist was a smoker?),
readers should not view the past with today's sensibilities.
Gibbons was born about one hundred years ago. That was
before there was radio, television, talking films,
commercially available sliced bread, antibiotics, the
Vietnamese war, the Korean war, World war II, and even World
war I. He died before the personal computer was invented,
before Walkmans, and before Jimmy Carter was president.
Euell's generation had different perceptions than we do
today.
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