Japanese Pre-Festival Program

Eating Wild Japan: Tracking the Culture of Foraged Foods with a Guide to Plants and Recipes 

with Winifred Bird

Winifred Bird will discuss her new book Eating Wild Japan: Tracking the Culture of Foraged Foods, with a Guide to Plants and Recipes.

Research for the book took her to rural communities from Hokkaido in the north of Japan to Shikoku in the south, where she met the men and women who carry on centuries-old traditions of gathering edible wild plants and stewarding the places where they grow.

She will share pictures and stories from her travels and discuss the book with Chicago translator Alta Price.

Presenter: Winifred Bird is an award-winning writer and translator, a lifelong cook, and a lover of plants both wild and domesticated. From 2005 through 2014 she lived in Japan, where she worked as an environmental journalist, grew organic rice and vegetables, and ate as many foraged foods as possible. Her writing has been published in the Japan Times, NPR.org, Dwell, Pacific Standard, and elsewhere. She lives with her husband and two sons in Oregon, Illinois.

IWA Contact: Alta Price