The book is organized in a way familiar to readers of Mark Kurlansky or Michael Pollan: first an action narrative, then a loop through biology and ecology, a dash through the stinging nettles of climate change and ever-encroaching environmental destruction, a quick end run through socio-cultural history, then a wind-up of the narrative and a triumphant meal and recipe.

The reader tags along after Cook, skimming along through his magazine-ready adventures (it's no surprise to find out that he writes frequently for publications like Outside and The Stranger), learning some nifty stuff about, say, the fruiting cycles of the morel mushroom, or why hunting for Dungeness crabs during their mating season is like shooting fish in a barrel. But, just like those lurking lingcod, the truly captivating stories stay in the shadows.

What does fishing mean for the Asian grandmothers who come down night after night to fish for squid off the municipal pier where Cook shows up one evening, nervous of his status as Anglo newbie amid the bantering regulars from Cambodia and Nicaragua? Or the morel-hunting locals on the edges of a remote mountain town who saw their forest go up in smoke around them during a recent wildfire? Cook can't quite shake the knowledge that what's fun (or at least fodder for a book contract) for him is necessity for others, and neither can the reader.

Still, it's an intriguing read, and a way to take a fresh look at the edible abundance available for the (slightly stealthy) taking even in the heart of a sprawling American city.

And if you're not quite ready to free-dive for abalone yet, you can join interdisciplinary artist Julie Kahn (currently working at the Headlands Center for the Arts) for a feast of wild game and foraged foods in Marin on November 15th. It's a benefit for Swamp Cabbage, which Kahn and her fellow filmmaker Hayley Downs call a "dark and sweaty" documentary in progress tracing their personal connections to the fast-disappearing backwoods traditions of rural Florida. The multi-course menu includes chicharrones from Ryan Farr's 4505 Meats, swamp cabbage pickles, gator bites, locally hunted wild boar from Mendocino, local abalone, acorn bread, truly wild mushroom pizza, persimmon gelato foraged and made by Liana and Michael Orlandi of Mill Valley's Gelateria Ceci, and more.

I'll be baking foraged fruit turnovers for the spread, too--which means I better get up early and start stalking those succulent figs around the corner.

langdon cooklangdon cook

Fat of the Land: Adventures in 21st Century Foraging