Today on Mushroom Hour we are excited to sit down and chat with Lisa Cutcliffe from Leeds, Yorkshire in the UK. Lisa is the founder, foraging-guide-in-chief and all-round mushroom-nut at Edulis Wild Foods. With a degree in biology, being a keen gardener, veg grower, and having a lifelong fascination with nature and wildlife, she is interested in all aspects of wild food and medicinals.
As we explore the wilds of Leeds in England, we find a younger Lisa poking around the woods between classes at university. Her curiosity about using edible mushrooms in cooking led her down a pre-Internet road of discovery, seeking out information about mysterious kingdom fungi. It was the quest for her first porcini that brought her from Leeds to the "New Forest" in the South of England and set her down the path of edible mushrooms and wild food.
Her love of mushrooms branched out into a love of plant foraging as she was determined to find edible foods across every season. Her journey came to a traumatic inflection point as a diving accident damaged her back and crippled her ability to go abroad and engage in the physical activity that was her passion. However, the regeneration from this experience pushed her to explore the UK Isles and rediscover herself, open up her love of wild foods and connect with an incredible community of wild mushroom and plant enthusiasts across the UK. How can foraging be used as a form of physical and emotional therapy to help us recover from trauma?
Pursuing her passion for wild foods more intensively, Lisa felt the call to "find the others"! After connecting with and learning alongside other UK wild food experts, she became a founding member of the Association of Foragers - a network that provides collective support for professional foragers guided by an ethos of "Restoring Vital Connection". This influence and the community she was now a part of inspired Lisa to create her own wild foods business - Edulis Wild Foods.
We'll take a walk in the shoes of a professional foraging educator and learn keen insights about the responsibility and realities of such a path. How do you know when you're ready to start teaching others? How does one balance a day job with the commitment to being a professional educator? For Lisa the most satisfying part of sharing her love of wild foods is seeing her students reconnect with nature and remember the ancestral connection they have to their land.
Directed, Recorded, Produced by: Mushroom Hour
(@welcome_to_mushroom_hour)
Music by: Ancient Baby (https://peckthetowncrier.bandcamp.com/)
Art by: Wyn Di Stefano (http://www.wyndistefano.com/)
Episode Resources
Edulis Wild Foods (website): http://www.eduliswildfood.co.uk/
Lisa Cutcliffe (IG): https://www.instagram.com/eduliswildfood/
Association of Foragers (UK): https://foragers-association.org/
Craterellus cornucopioides (mushroom): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Craterellus_cornucopioides
Chlorociboria aeruginascens (mushroom): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chlorociboria_aeruginascens
Ep. 158: The Hidden Kingdom of Fungi - Exploring the Microscopic World in Our Forests, Homes & Bodies (feat. Dr. Keith Seifert)
Ep. 157: Psychedelic Adventures into Microscopic Mushroom Worlds (feat. Irene Antonez)
Ep. 156: Chaotic Forager - Mycology, Ecosystems & the Explosion of Mushroom Media (feat. Gabrielle Cerberville)
Ep. 155: What a Mushroom Lives For - Matsutake & the Worlds They Make (feat. Dr. Michael J. Hathaway)
Ep. 154: Medicinal Mushrooms, Fungal Microbiomes & Alberta's Fungal Diversity (feat. Martin Osis)
Ep. 153: Rural Courses - Self-Sufficient Living with Fungi, Plants and Animals (feat. Michael White)
Ep. 152: Poland Fungi - For the Glory of Mushrooms (feat. Piotr Zieba)
Ep. 151: Neuroscience, Memory and Psychedelics (feat. Manoj Doss PhD)
Ep. 150: The Global Forest Health Crisis & the Sentinel Tree Network (feat. Geoffery Williams PhD)
Ep. 149: Umbo - Elite Athletes, Functional Mushrooms & Psychedelic Science (feat. Jake Plummer, Rashad Evans & Del Jolly)
Ep. 148: Smugtown Mushrooms - Fungi in Greece & Remediating Social Ecologies (feat. Olga Tzogas)
Ep. 147: World Wild - Guiding a Lost Society Back to Nature (feat. Miles Irving)
Ep. 146: The Brotherhood of the Screaming Abyss & Psychedelic Biochemistry (feat. Dennis McKenna)
Ep. 145: Dynamite-Throwing Fungi, Itasca Research Station & How Decomposition Builds Character (feat. Prof Jonathan Schilling)
Ep. 144: SQIM, Mogu, Ephea – Merging with Mycelium to Grow Regenerative Futures (feat. Maurizio Montalti)
Ep. 143: Wild Mushroom Education, Intentional Communities & Breaking the Binary (feat. Jules Amanita)
Ep. 142: Mycorrhizal Markets & The Society for the Protection of Underground Networks (feat. Prof. Toby Kiers)
Ep. 141: Wild Creativity - Chocolate Ears, Mushroom Paper, Stinkhorn Juice & Amanita Ice Cream (feat. Fergus Drennan)
Ep. 140: Dropping Spores in Singapore & Bewildering Mycelium Creations (feat. Ng Sze Kiat)
Ep. 139: Funganista - From Music Stardom to Mycological Obsession (feat. Andy Overall)
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