TEACHING FOR 50 YEARS
NYERGES REFLECTS ON HIS TEACHING CAREER, BEGINNING IN JANUARY 1974
By Christopher Nyerges
[www.SchoolofSelf-Reliance.com]
At the end of one of my recent classes, wild food chef, Pascal Baudar, who is the author of 4 books on how to make delicious meals from wild foods, presented me with a gift in recognition of my 50 years of teaching wild foods. Baudar, who is a true pioneer is his work, gave me a ceramic bowl that he made from clay that he personally dug and fired. I was quite happy at this limited edition clay pot, and promptly used it to eat a wild salad.
The gift of a hand-made clay bowl from Pascal Baudar.
HOW IT ALL BEGAN
My interest in wild foods arose from my childhood interest in hiking and exploring the Angeles National Forest. At first, I was a backpacker who disliked carrying canned foods, but who loved the outdoors. Wherever I went, I wanted to know about the plants and wildlife that resided there. And I wanted to know the history of the early peoples who resided there.
By middle school, I had an encounter with another hiker in the mountains who explained to me and my hiking partner how he learned about wild foods from Northern California native peoples. Really? I exclaimed. What people? What plants? Are the plants still here? The man pointed out mustard and miners lettuce and pine needles before he hiked away. And I could not get this idea out of my mind.
My studies then opened a new world to me. In an overcrowded world of over-development, I learned that native peoples once exclusively resided where I lived, and they got everything from the land: Food, medicine, shelter, tools, clothing.
My studies rapidly took me down the path of botany and biology and ethnobotany. There was no looking back. I realized that all our man-made problems are mostly due to our disrespect for the environment, and our greedy desire to extract more from nature than what is ecologically possible.
I pursued botany in the urban areas, in the mountains, deserts, beaches, in Mexico, and in Ohio when I lived on my grandfather’s farm. In botany, I found a positive solution to most of our problems. By my mid-teens, I was no longer pursuing this from a fear perspective, but rather from the perspective of the excitement of re-discovering the living legacy of native America.
I read every book on the subject I could get my hands on. I made friends with native Americans near me. And I started writing my first book. I would hitchhike up and down the west coast, supplementing my diet with wild foods. I would go into the local mountains to test myself, living off wild foods for a week or a weekend at a time
By 1974, I was asked to lead a wild food walk for a local non profit, WTI, based in the Highland Park section of Los Angeles. I wasn’t sure I could do it. I had just turned 19, and thought that there had to be far more qualified people out there. But I said yes. The founder of the non-profit, Richard White, tutored me in how to be a good teacher.
The very first formal wild food outing conducted by Nyerges in January 1974.
The outing was advertised in the local papers, and 100 people showed up one January morning in 1974 at the entrance to the Angeles National Forest in Altadena. We walked along the stream, and I identified native and non-native plants. We collected greens along the way. We walked two miles up the canyon to a campground, with perhaps 70 of the hikers still with us, and there we made a salad and soup, and there were a few side lessons on such things as dowsing and fire-making.
It was a wonderful class, and I learned some important lessons about teaching and learning to respond to students’ questions.
It was a long day, and there were only 12 of us left in the end. And it started my lifelong professional interest in teaching ethnobotany, and all the other related skills.
Nyerges, right, leading a wilderness field trip.
With a few exceptions, I led field trips just about every weekend since then, many of which were overnights. I taught hundreds of classes through the local colleges, and gave more lectures than I remember. There was no internet back then, but every local newspaper and nearly every local radio and tv station eventually interviewed me about the wild food foraging walks I conducted. Interestingly, there was a lot of ridicule in the beginning, though that is now a thing of the past.
I had the good fortune to meet and study with botanist Dr. Leonid Enari, who taught at the L.A. County Arboretum. Among other things, Dr. Enari worked closely with me on my first book.
Dr. Leonid Enari, Nyerges’ primary botanical mentor. Nyerges refers to Dr. Enari as the “greatest botanist that no one knows.”
Big among my influencers was Euell Gibbons, author of “Stalking the Wild Asparagus” and promoter of Post Grape Nuts. I only met him once.
Christopher Nyerges (right) met famous forager Euell Gibbons once in 1975.
Over the years, I have travelled throughout the United States teaching these skills. I appeared on many local news stations over the years, once appearing with Ron Hood, who was one of the top survival instructors in the country. I was very busy during Y2K. I appeared on Huell Howser’s popular show, and I consulted for dozens of TV shows, including Naked and Afraid, and Doomsday Preppers. I’ve written thousands of newspaper and magazine articles over the years, from such publications as the Los Angeles Times, Mother Earth News, Pasadena Star News, Prepper Guide, Countryside, American Survival Guide (of which I was editor for a bit), and Wilderness Way (I was editor for 7 years). And as of today, I have written 27 books, mostly on wild foods and self-reliance topics.
Nyerges, center, conducting a survival skills class.
One of the greatest benefits has been meeting so many outstanding people in the course of teaching perhaps upwards of 50,000 students. This is how I met “chaparral granny” Dorothy Poole, and Tongva elder Barbara Drake, who involved me in teaching Indian Education classes for a number of years. This is also how I met wild food chef Pascal Baudar.
Along the way, I met some of the finest instructors around today, most of whom became a part of my ad hoc, itinerant, peripatetic staff, people like Gary Gonzales, Rick Adams, Paul Campbell, Dude Mclean, Alan Halcon, Rob Remedi, Keith Farrar, Jim Robertson, Angelo Cervera, and many others.
Fifty years of teaching foraging and self-reliance has been quite a roller coaster. I look forward to the next 50 years!~
