A Forager’s Life: On finding healing and harmony in nature

A poignant debut memoir about class, family and belonging, told through the author’s lifelong passion for wild food

‘Parsimonia ante dignitatem!’ Helen Lehndorf would call out across the dinner table before feeding flatmates a meal made from foods she had foraged, gleaned or found. Thrift before dignity.

In this searching and heartfelt memoir, Helen remembers her life through the foods and medicines she foraged: from a childhood living off the land in rural Taranaki, to scrimping and scavenging as a student, searching for ancestral connection in the English countryside, making a quiet home in Aotearoa with her family, and receiving a diagnosis that threatens to change everything.

Interweaving foraging recipes, principles, practices and adventures, A Forager’s Life tells a story of class, care and belonging. Helen finds in nature a promise that, with the right frame of mind, much can be made of the world around us.