Euell Gibbons
Encyclopedia
Euell Theophilus Gibbons (September 14, 1911 – December 29, 1975) was an outdoorsman and proponent of natural diets during the 1960s.

He was born in Clarksville, Texas
Clarksville, Texas
Clarksville is a city in Red River County, Texas, in the United States. As of the 2000 census, the city population was 3,883. It is the county seat of Red River County.-Geography:Clarksville is located at ....

, on September 14, 1911, and spent much of his youth in the hilly terrain of New Mexico
New Mexico
New Mexico is a state located in the southwest and western regions of the United States. New Mexico is also usually considered one of the Mountain States. With a population density of 16 per square mile, New Mexico is the sixth-most sparsely inhabited U.S...

 during the dust bowl
Dust Bowl
The Dust Bowl, or the Dirty Thirties, was a period of severe dust storms causing major ecological and agricultural damage to American and Canadian prairie lands from 1930 to 1936...

 era. His mother taught him about foods available in the wild. As an adult he spent time in several states working a variety of jobs. During a stay in Hawaii
Hawaii
Hawaii is the newest of the 50 U.S. states , and is the only U.S. state made up entirely of islands. It is the northernmost island group in Polynesia, occupying most of an archipelago in the central Pacific Ocean, southwest of the continental United States, southeast of Japan, and northeast of...

 from 1947 to 1951, he met and married Freda Fryer. Throughout his travels his interest in wild foods continued and he experimented with new recipes and consulted experts.

Career

Although Gibbons longed to be a writer, he had difficulty getting published. However, capitalizing on the growing return-to-nature movement in 1962, his first book, Stalking the Wild Asparagus, became an instant success. From the cover blurb:
A delightful book on the recognition, gathering, preparation and use of the natural health foods that grow wild all about us. The lore here can turn every field, forest, swamp, vacant lot and roadside into a health-food market with free merchandise.


Gibbons then produced the cookbooks Stalking the Blue-Eyed Scallop in 1964 and Stalking the Healthful Herbs in 1966. He was widely published in various magazine
Magazine
Magazines, periodicals, glossies or serials are publications, generally published on a regular schedule, containing a variety of articles. They are generally financed by advertising, by a purchase price, by pre-paid magazine subscriptions, or all three...

s, including two pieces which appeared in National Geographic Magazine
National Geographic Magazine
National Geographic, formerly the National Geographic Magazine, is the official journal of the National Geographic Society. It published its first issue in 1888, just nine months after the Society itself was founded...

. The first article, in the July 1972 issue, described a two-week stay on an uninhabited island off the coast of Maine
Maine
Maine is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States, bordered by the Atlantic Ocean to the east and south, New Hampshire to the west, and the Canadian provinces of Quebec to the northwest and New Brunswick to the northeast. Maine is both the northernmost and easternmost...

 where Gibbons along with his wife Freda and a few family friends relied solely on the island's resources for sustenance. The second article, which appeared in the August 1973 issue, features Gibbons, along with granddaughter Colleen and grandson Mike, stalking wild foods in four western states.

Gibbons's publishing success brought him fame. He made guest appearances on The Tonight Show
The Tonight Show
The Tonight Show is an American late-night talk show that has aired on NBC since 1954. It is the longest currently running regularly scheduled entertainment program in the United States, and the third longest-running show on NBC, after Meet the Press and Today.The Tonight Show has been hosted by...

and The Sonny & Cher Comedy Hour
The Sonny & Cher Comedy Hour
The Sonny & Cher Comedy Hour is an American variety show based on the married couple of American pop-singer Cher and her husband, Sonny Bono. The show ran on CBS in the United States, when it premiered in August 1971...

. He was awarded an honorary doctorate from Susquehanna University
Susquehanna University
Susquehanna University is a liberal arts college in Selinsgrove, Pennsylvania, United States, north of the state capital, Harrisburg.-Academics:...

, even though he had only completed the equivalent of a sixth-grade education.

A 1974 television commercial for Post Grape-Nuts
Grape-Nuts
Grape-Nuts is a breakfast cereal developed by C. W. Post in 1897. Post was a patient and later competitor of the 19th-century breakfast food innovator, Dr. John Harvey Kellogg. Despite its name, the cereal contains neither grapes nor nuts. The cereal is actually made from wheat and barley, in later...

 cereal featured Gibbons asking viewers "Ever eat a pine tree? Many parts are edible." While he recommended eating Grape Nuts over eating pine trees (Grape Nuts' taste "reminds me of wild hickory nuts"), the quote caught the public's imagination and fueled his celebrity status. Johnny Carson
Johnny Carson
John William "Johnny" Carson was an American television host and comedian, known as host of The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson for 30 years . Carson received six Emmy Awards including the Governor Award and a 1985 Peabody Award; he was inducted into the Television Academy Hall of Fame in 1987...

 joked about sending Gibbons a "lumber-gram", and Gibbons himself joined in the humor; when presented with a wooden award plaque by Sonny and Cher, he good-naturedly took a bite out of it. (The "plaque" was actually an edible prop.)

Often mistaken for a survivalist
Survivalism
Survivalism is a movement of individuals or groups who are actively preparing for future possible disruptions in local, regional, national, or international social or political order...

, Gibbons was simply an advocate of nutritious but neglected plants. He typically prepared these not in the wild, but in the kitchen with abundant use of spices, butter and garnishes. Several of his books discuss what he called "wild parties": dinner parties where guests were served dishes prepared from plants gathered in the wild. His favorite recommendations included lamb's quarters
Lamb's quarters
Lamb's quarter, lambsquarters and similar terms refer to various species of goosefoot, or pigweed.There are numerous variations, with or without hyphens and apostrophes, using one word or two, and singular or plural...

, rose hip
Rose hip
The rose hip, or rose haw, is the fruit of the rose plant, that typically is red-to-orange, but ranges from dark purple to black in some species. Rose hips begin to form in spring, and ripen in late summer through autumn.-Usage:...

s, young dandelion shoots, stinging nettle
Stinging nettle
Stinging nettle or common nettle, Urtica dioica, is a herbaceous perennial flowering plant, native to Europe, Asia, northern Africa, and North America, and is the best-known member of the nettle genus Urtica...

 and cattails. He often pointed out that gardeners threw away the more tasty and nutrient-rich crop when they pulled such weeds as purslane
Purslane
Purslane may refer to:* Portulacaceae, a family of succulent flowering plants, and especially:** Portulaca oleracea, a species of Portulaca eaten as a vegetable and considered a weed, known as summer purslane...

 and amaranth
Amaranth
Amaranthus, collectively known as amaranth, is a cosmopolitan genus of herbs. Approximately 60 species are recognized, with inflorescences and foliage ranging from purple and red to gold...

 out from among their spinach
Spinach
Spinach is an edible flowering plant in the family of Amaranthaceae. It is native to central and southwestern Asia. It is an annual plant , which grows to a height of up to 30 cm. Spinach may survive over winter in temperate regions...

 plants.

Euell died on December 29, 1975, at Sunbury Community Hospital in Sunbury, Pennsylvania
Sunbury, Pennsylvania
Sunbury is a city in Northumberland County, Pennsylvania, United States. The city is located on the east bank of the Susquehanna River, just downstream of the confluence of its main and West branches. The population was 9,905 at the 2010 census...

. His death was the result of a ruptured aortic aneurysm
Aortic aneurysm
An aortic aneurysm is a general term for any swelling of the aorta to greater than 1.5 times normal, usually representing an underlying weakness in the wall of the aorta at that location...

, a complication from Marfan syndrome
Marfan syndrome
Marfan syndrome is a genetic disorder of the connective tissue. People with Marfan's tend to be unusually tall, with long limbs and long, thin fingers....

.

Legacy

He was posthumously satirized by cartoonist Scott Shaw
Scott Shaw (artist)
Scott Shaw is a United States cartoonist and animator, and is also an esteemed conductor of the concert band at Mary Institute and Country Day School...

 as "You-All Gibbon
Gibbon
Gibbons are apes in the family Hylobatidae . The family is divided into four genera based on their diploid chromosome number: Hylobates , Hoolock , Nomascus , and Symphalangus . The extinct Bunopithecus sericus is a gibbon or gibbon-like ape which, until recently, was thought to be closely related...

 - The Junk Food
Junk food
Junk food is an informal term applied to some foods that are perceived to have little or no nutritional value ; to products with nutritional value, but which also have ingredients considered unhealthy when regularly eaten; or to those considered unhealthy to consume at all...

 Monkey" in the independently published comic book "Quack!".http://lambiek.net/artists/s/shaw_scott.htm. There is also a mention of him in the song Junk Food Junkie
Junk Food Junkie
Junk Food Junkie is a 1976 novelty song by Larry Groce. Reaching #9 on the Billboard Top 100, it was Groce's only song to chart.The song tells about a man leading a double life. During the day he boasts of his natural diet lifestyle – however, at night, he reveals that he is secretly...

 from 1976.

Further reading

Euell Gibbons Handbook of Edible Wild Plants. Compiled by Gordon Tuncker and Freda Gibbons published in 1979 by A Unilaw Library Book Donning Virginia Beach Norfolk

External links

  • THE PLOWBOY INTERVIEW: EUELL GIBBONS, Mother Earth News
    Mother Earth News
    Mother Earth News is a bi-monthly American magazine that has a circulation of 475,000. It is based in Topeka, Kansas.Approaching environmental problems from a down-to-earth, practical, how-to standpoint, Mother Earth News has, since the magazine’s founding in 1970, been a pioneer in the promotion...

    , May–June 1972.
  • Euell Gibbons Biography by John Kallas, Ph.D., Institute for the Study of Edible Wild Plants and Other Foragables. Article with Photograph
  • Euell Gibbons Biography by John Sunder. The Handbook of Texas Online
  • Biographical sketch (describing a week long camping by foraging trip with Euell Gibbons) appears on pages 65–118 in a section called "A Forager" in the book A Roomful of Hovings by John McPhee
    John McPhee
    John Angus McPhee is an American Pulitzer Prize-winning writer, widely considered one of the pioneers of creative nonfiction....

    , 1967.
  • New York Times appreciation of Euell Gibbons by John McPhee Wild Man
  • Euell Gibbons Post Grape Nuts television commercial, 1974.
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