In his tale of the world of mushroom gathering, Langdon Cook explores the hidden underside of the current American fascination with foraged foods. Part narrative, part inspirational travelogue, The Mushroom Hunters tells the stories of Jeremy Farber, a wild foods buyer who supplies restaurants on both coasts of the United States, and Doug Carnell, an itinerant mushroom hunter with a knack for finding the best fungi money can purchase.
Cook (Fat of the Land) spent several years with mushroom hunters and wild food buyers who haunt the back roads of the Pacific Northwest, from the Yukon to Northern California, gaining their trust and learning their way of life. It's a tough, highly competitive life for folks like Carnell and Farber, living from pick to pick and patch to patch. Tensions, racial and financial, run high, and Cook captures the essence of the wild mushroom trail at all its levels. There are commercial and recreational pickers, foodies and high-octane restauranteurs who need more mushrooms than ever as diners demand more and more local, wild foods.
The Mushroom Hunters is an engaging, warmly human portrait of the fairly undocumented life of commercial foragers, finely spiced with morsels of foodie lore, tantalizing glimpses of wild mushroom cooking and a self-deprecating sense of humor. As he welcomes readers into the world of wild foods, Cook transcends the mundane, shining a caring light on the people who make their living on the mushroom trail. --Rob LeFebvre, freelance writer and editor