Ewell gibbons biography of mahatma

American writer, outdoorsman, and health food advocate

Euell Theophilus Gibbons (September 8, &#; December 29, )^[2] was an outdoorsman and early health food advocate, promoting eating wild foods during the s.

Early career

Gibbons was born in Clarksville, Texas, on September 8, , and spent much of his youth in the hilly terrain of northwestern New Mexico.

His father drifted from job to job, usually taking his wife and four children with him.^[3]

During one difficult interval of homesteading, Gibbons began foraging for local plants and berries to supplement the family diet.

Ewell gibbons biography of mahatma This article includes a list of general references , but it lacks sufficient corresponding inline citations. Within a week the livestock died, and only pinto beans remained for food. No, he used plenty of white sugar, and loved to deep fry. Toggle the table of contents.

After leaving home at 15,^[2] he drifted throughout the Southwest, finding work as a dairyman, carpenter, trapper, gold panner, and cowboy. The early years of the Dust Bowl era found Gibbons in California, where he lived as a self-described bindle stiff^[3]:&#;98&#; and, in sympathy with labor causes, began writing Communist Party leaflets.

Later in the s he settled in Seattle, served a stint in the Army, married, and worked as a carpenter, surveyor, and boatbuilder.^{[citation needed]}

During the late s, Gibbons was still giving "more time to his political activity than to his work, and more time to wild food than to politics."^[3]:&#;&#; After the Soviet Union invaded Poland in , however, he renounced Communism and spent most of World War II in Hawaii, building and repairing boats for the Navy.

His first marriage, Gibbons recalled, became a "casualty of the war,"^[3]:&#;&#; and in the postwar years he chose the life of a beachcomber on the Hawaiian Islands.

After entering the University of Hawaii as a year-old freshman, Gibbons majored in anthropology and won the university's creative-writing prize.

In , he married Freda Fryer, a teacher, and both decided to join the Society of Friends (the Quakers), stating "I became a Quaker because it was the only group I could join without pretending to have beliefs that I didn't have or concealing beliefs that I did have."^[3]:&#;&#;

They relocated to the mainland in , where, after a failed attempt to found a cooperative agricultural community in Indiana, Gibbons became a staff member at Pendle Hill Quaker Study Center near Philadelphia, cooking breakfast for everyone every day.

Around , through his wife's urging and support, he followed through on his earlier aspirations and turned to writing.^{[citation needed]}

Literary career and celebrity

At the request of a New York literary agent, Gibbons agreed to rework the draft of his novel (about a schoolteacher who wowed café society with opulent meals of foraged foodstuffs) into a straightforward book on wild food.^[3]:&#;68&#; Capitalizing on the growing return-to-nature movement in , the resulting work, Stalking the Wild Asparagus, was an instant success.

Gibbons followed it up with the cookbooks Stalking the Blue-Eyed Scallop in and Stalking the Healthful Herbs in He was widely published in various magazines, including two pieces in National Geographic.

The first article, in the July issue, described a two-week stay on an uninhabited island off the coast of Maine where Gibbons, with his wife Freda and a few family friends, relied solely on local resources for sustenance.^[4] The second, in the August issue, featured Gibbons, along with granddaughter Colleen, grandson Mike, and daughter-in-law Patricia, stalking wild foods in four western states.^[5]

His publishing success brought him fame.

Ewell gibbons death

Ewell gibbons death date

Voice In The Wilderness: Euell Gibbons: Does Anyone Remember Him?

He made guest appearances on The Tonight Show and The Sonny & Cher Comedy Hour, and received an honorary doctorate from Susquehanna University. A television commercial for Post Grape-Nuts cereal featured him asking viewers, "Ever eat a pine tree? Many parts are edible." While he recommended Grape Nuts over pine trees (including the oft-repeated quote that Grape Nuts' taste reminded him "of wild hickory nuts"), the commercials gained attention and fueled Gibbons's celebrity status.

Johnny Carson joked about sending Gibbons a "lumber-gram", and on the 5/17/ episode of The Tonight Show joked that "Mary Tyler Moore needs another Emmy like Euell Gibbons needs prunes". 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).

Ewell gibbons biography of mahatma gandhi This success allowed Gibbons to move into a home in Troxelville, Pennsylvania, in 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. At age fifteen, Gibbons left home and became a range hand in northern New Mexico for six years, regularly sending part of his salary home. A literary agent advised him to revise it as nonfiction, relying heavily on his own experiences.

He was satirized by John Byner on the Carol Burnett Show episode which aired October 6, , shown eating tree parts and asking related questions, including "Ever lick a river?" In a skit on the children's television program The Electric Company, cast member Skip Hinnant (as Early Gibbons) was a proponent of eating items starting with the prefix "ST-," including a tree stump, a staircase (with a "first step," presumably made of wood), and sticks and stones.^{[citation needed]}

In Larry Groce's novelty hit "Junk Food Junkie", the singer extols his healthy lifestyle, claiming to be "a friend of old Euell Gibbons".

(The record was released after Gibbons's death.)

Often mistaken for a survivalist, Gibbons was simply an advocate of nutritious but neglected plants, which he typically prepared 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, rose hips, young dandelion shoots, stinging nettle and cattails. He often pointed out that gardeners threw away the tastier, more healthful crop when they removed such "weeds" as purslane and amaranth from among their spinach plants.^{[citation needed]}

Gibbons is considered a saint by the God's Gardeners, a fictional religious sect that is the focus of Margaret Atwood's novel The Year of the Flood.^[6][7]

Death

This section needs expansion. You can help by adding to it. Ewell gibbons obituary With his mother and siblings close to starvation, Gibbons foraged for familiar edible wild weeds and kept the family alive on dandelion crowns, Russian thistle, wild garlic, lamb's-quarters, wild potatoes, and small game. Other Photos Add photo. ISBN Post a Comment. (February )

Gibbons died on December 29, , aged 64, at Sunbury Community Hospital in Sunbury, Pennsylvania,^[8] of a ruptured aortic aneurysm.^[9]

Bibliography

• Stalking the Wild Asparagus ()
• Stalking the Blue-Eyed Scallop ()
• Stalking the Healthful Herbs ()
• Stalking the Good Life ()
• Beachcomber's Handbook ()
• A Wild Way to Eat () for the Hurricane Island Outward Bound School
• Stalking the Faraway Places ()
• (collected in) American Food Writing: An Anthology with Classic Recipes, ed.

  Molly O'Neill (Library of America, ) ISBN&#;

• Feast on a Diabetic Diet ()
• Euell Gibbons' Handbook of Edible Wild Plants ()

References

External links