Euell Gibbons

Euell Theophilus Gibbons (September 8, 1911 – December 29, 1975) was an outdoorsman and early health food advocate who promoted eating wild foods during the 1960s.

Early career Gibbons was born in Clarksville, Texas, on September 8, 1911. His father drifted from job to job, usually taking his wife and four children with him. When he was 11, his family moved to Estancia Valley, New Mexico, where they became homesteaders.

During one difficult interval of homesteading, Gibbons began foraging for local plants and berries to supplement his family's diet. After leaving home at 15, he drifted throughout the Southwest, finding work as a dairyman, carpenter, trapper, gold panner, and cowboy. In 1936, He married his first wife, Anna Swanson. They had two children together. Gibbons published the cookbooks Stalking the Blue-Eyed Scallop in 1964 and Stalking the Healthful Herbs in 1966. His writings were also printed in several magazines. He was featured in an article in the 23 September 1966 issue of LIFE.

He wrote two pieces for National Geographic. His first National Geographic article, in the July 1972 issue, described his two-week stay on an uninhabited island off the coast of Maine. Gibbons, his wife, and a few family friends relied solely on local resources for sustenance. His second National Geographic article, in the August 1973 issue, featured Gibbons, along with his granddaughter Colleen, grandson Mike, and daughter-in-law Patricia, "stalking" wild foods in four western states.

In the early 1970s, Gibbons was featured in television commercials for Post Grape-Nuts cereal. He asked viewers, "Ever eat a pine tree? Many parts are edible." and remarked that the taste reminded him "of wild hickory nuts". Gibbons made guest appearances on The Tonight Show and The Sonny & Cher Comedy Hour. Gibbons also appeared on an episode of The Dean Martin Celebrity Roast. He received an honorary degree from Susquehanna University. Johnny Carson joked that "Mary Tyler Moore needs another Emmy like Euell Gibbons needs prunes". In a 1974 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.

Death Gibbons died on December 29, 1975, aged 64, at Sunbury Community Hospital in Sunbury, Pennsylvania of a ruptured aortic aneurysm.

Legacy In Larry Groce's song "Junk Food Junkie", Groce claims to be "a friend of old Euell Gibbons" as he extols his healthy lifestyle.

Gibbons was sometimes a character used in questions for the contestants of Match Game in the mid-1970s (for instance, episode 554, in 1975).

Gibbons is referenced in Season 2, Episode 15 of Gilmore Girls. Lorelai Gilmore asks Jess Mariano, "So, are you a healthy eater like Luke?" To which Jess replies, "No... no one's a healthy eater like Luke; Euell Gibbons wasn't a healthy eater like Luke!"

Gibbons is considered a saint by the God's Gardeners, a fictional religious sect that is the focus of Margaret Atwood's 2009 novel The Year of the Flood.

Often mistaken for a survivalist, Gibbons was an advocate for nutritious but neglected plants, which he typically prepared 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.