Ever since I met Frank Cook back in 2008, I’d always wanted to interview his friend, Sandor Katz. The two of them were good friends and conducted workshops together. In this short video Sandor talks about his friendship with Frank, and the ways they were exploring wild foods and wild fermentation…

“My name is Sandor Katz. I am the author of a book called Wild Fermentation and another book called The Revolution Will Not Be Microwaved.

I met Frank around 2003 (I believe) for the first time. Our first encounter was at a gathering in North Carolina that was called the Pollinator Gathering, and Frank arrived just as I was leaving. But all weekend long people had been talking about him and that he and I should meet each other.

While I was teaching people about many different modes of fermentation, making sauerkraut, making tempeh, making miso, making meads. Frank was mostly focusing on making meads, specifically herbal elixir meads. As a means of preserving plant medicine from his foraging walks.

For me it was a pleasure to teach with someone who I liked so much, who I had so much to learn from and really tag-team teaching was wonderful because we could really put ourselves into it 100%, and then have a little bit of downtime where we could rest and relax and rejuvenate and get ready for the next bit of teaching.

He was always getting people working with their hands in the kitchen and then getting them outside, getting them to know the plants that were right around them.

Frank was so amazing on plant walks, because he rarely got very far. He had such a really comprehensive knowledge of plants that you would just get out in the yard and there would be hours of things to talk about within an easy walk around the house.

The students and Frank would always bring back bags of leaves, roots, berries and fruits and things that they had harvested and we would figure out how to incorporate them into fermented vegetables as well as into herbal elixir meads.

On our workshops that were more than one day, we would always make tempeh and incorporate that into the meal, and we would often make ‘Idli’. Frank had travelled the world much more extensively than I had, so he had experienced a food like ‘Idli’ in its indigenous context in a way that I hadn’t. So he knew the right kind of ‘Dal’ stew and the right kind of chutney to prepare with it. So we always had a really fruitful collaboration.

And actually the last workshop that we taught was just about a week before he died. He wasn’t feeling very well and it was a two day workshop, and at the end of the first day he told me that if he wasn’t feeling better in the morning, that he didn’t think he’d be able to be there for the second day.

But in the morning he arrived and said that he had slept great and felt much better, and he threw himself into it. And then that weekend he went to a permaculture gathering, the South East Permaculture Gathering in North Carolina, and he led a plant walk there. He was definitely low energy but I had no sense at all that he was seriously ill, and on the verge of death. I don’t know if he did either.

I get the impression from talking to mutual friends that he realised that he was dealing with something serious and that he was making a little bit of an effort to downplay it, so as not to worry people.

But really since Frank’s death I have had a lot of reflection, trying to take on the important work that he was doing and trying to incorporate some of the teaching that I had always deferred to him, because he was doing it so much better than I could imagine doing it myself.

I do have this huge sense of loss not only of a beautiful human being and friend but of someone who had a really specific gift that he was sharing people in an active way.

I have been really trying to take on some of that sharing with people that he was doing. One way that I have been doing that is incorporating acorns into my life, and into the teaching that I have been doing. That was something Frank was absolutely passionate about. This abundant, protein rich food source that was so widely available, and so widely ignored. So I have been working more with acorns, and incorporating that into the work that I do with fermentation.
Also, to the more limited extent that I have knowledge about plants that are edible and useful and common. I am trying to share that information with people more.

You know Frank influenced many, many people. It was funny, at his memorial service I met 7Song who was his first plant teacher who he talked about a lot. And 7Song talked about how gratifying it was for him to have a student who really got out into the world sharing this information so much. Wherever 7Song went he would meet people who would say “Oh, you’re Frank Cook’s teacher”. And what an honour and gratifying thing it was for him.

So yeah, Frank really put himself out there and was so passionate and so willing to share what he knew and what he’d learned.”

I am deeply saddened by the news that Frank Cook (plant teacher and herbalist) died on Wednesday, 19th August 2009.

Although I only met Frank for 3 hours videoing last September, that meeting had a life-changing impact on me. His gentleness and depth of plant knowledge was truly inspiring, and via e-mails he always encouraged me through EatWeeds to spread the plant knowledge.

Here are some parting words of wisdom from this gentle, peaceful plant teacher.

Frank Cook 1963-2009 by Tim Toben

Pearson Garden, Asheville NC, August 19, 2009. Just hours after his passing, Frank’s brother Ken spoke from the circle of nearly 200 friends holding hands around the garden. “I think he saw us all as plant beings and he certainly was one himself.” Muffled laughter mixed with tears. Frank Cook was the Banyan Tree.

If the name is not familiar, you’ll remember the man. Frank stood 6’3” tall with piercing blue eyes and waist length dreadlocks. He wore simple clothes and sandals and carried a satchel over his shoulder. In Chapel Hill, his home was a loft bed at the residence of Beth Williams and Alan Dehmer. He walked everywhere, once across the entire state of North Carolina, foraging for food along the way. Most of us in these modern times would die attempting such a trek. Frank feasted – both physically and spiritually.

Someone once said that we are born with two beings – one that dies and one that lives forever. That is certainly true for Frank Cook. Frank will always be known around the world for his plant knowledge and his journey to “meet” the 5000+ genera of plants. At 47 years old, he was 70% of the way to his goal. He’d chucked a promising career in computer science 20 years earlier to follow his heartsong, traveling to Namibia to meet Omumborombonga, the ancestral tree of life, and to India to meet Buckuchurbu, used to treat stomach upset.

Those of us lucky enough to cross His path were reacquainted with the native plants we loved as children. Frank could hang with the best Linnean taxonomist, but he “understood” plants more deeply – their medicinal qualities, their nutritional values, and their unique role in the interdependent ecology of nature. And he clearly loved them.

Frank would lean down and shade his small subjects with large hands and begin telling their story. The breath from his deep baritone voice seemed to lift the plantain or pipsissewa from its roots, as he brushed the leaves from around their base. “Choose me, choose me,” you could imagine them saying. In those moments, we were children again, finding a long lost love. And he was an “indigenous” teacher.

The meals between walks were just as vibrant. Reminding us that most Americans eat just 25 species of plants a year, he’d make fresh bread and soup with at least 25 species gathered during his walk. The flavors and energy in his food were life giving. He’d make teas by day and meads at night, always sharing a batch from last year in a pass- around bottle. Frank’s blueberry and sumac meads were my favorite. His gatherings built benevolent communities — families with native knowledge and skills.

His “business model” baffled most. He worked for donations. You paid what you could, and that was enough to fund Frank’s travels to meet plants across the globe. He’d recently completed a Masters Degree at the Schumacher Institute in the UK and written a book titled “Emerging Planetary Medicines.” His subject matter had expanded to include “transition cultures” – those preparing for not a low-, but a no-carbon economy.

Frank had just returned from teaching engagements in the Southwest US, and before that in South America. What he thought was travel weariness was apparently a spreading parasitic infection, which spread rapidly this week and this morning claimed his sinewy body. Thousands around the world, and several hundred in Carrboro, Chapel Hill, and Asheville weep quietly at the loss of their friend and teacher. We are ever so grateful for his many gifts, for the many seeds he planted.

If he’d ever stayed in one place for more than a few months, I’m convinced that Frank’s cascading dreadlocks would have taken root, like the Banyan Tree, and grown other Frank Cooks. And if so, what a better world this would be. Then again, as I looked around Pearsons Garden this damp August night and reflected on past gatherings at LEAF and Pickards Mountain, I thought…that’s precisely what has happened.

More Information On Frank Can Be Found At…

• “On my beloved Frank’s last days and his crossing” by Mary Morgaine
• “Frank Cook Passed Away This Morning” by Joseph Immel
• PlantsandHealers.com
• Photos of Frank on Facebook
• Frank’s Facebook Profile
• Family Healing Circle For Frank
• Videos of Frank Teaching About Plants

Frank Cook (internationally renowned edible wild plant expert) discusses the importance of Nettle (Urtica dioica) as food and medicine.

Frank gives us a fascinating insight into the many uses of Nettles, and the why it needs to become the national food of England.

The nutritional profile of this fantastic plant is impressive…

Nettle Nutritional Profile
(calculated on a zero moisture basis per 100gm)

Aluminium: 13.8 mg
Ash (total): 8.4%
Calcium: 2900 mg
Calories: 0.60 /gm
Chromium: 0.39 mg
Cobalt: 1.32 mg
Crude Fibre: 11.0%
Dietary Fibre: 43.0%
Fat: 2.3%
Iron: 4.2 mg
Magnesium: 860 mg
Manganese: 0.78 mg
Niacin: 5.20 mg
Phosphorous: 447 mg
Potassium: 1750 mg
Protein: 25.2%
Riboflavin: 0.43 mg
Selenium: 0.22 mg
Silicon: 1.03 mg
Sodium: 4.90 mg
Thiamine: 0.54 mg
Tin: 2.7 mg
Vitamin A: 15,700 IU
Vitamin C: 83.0 mg
Zinc: 0.47 mg

Source: Nutritional Herbology: Mark Pedersen

Running time: 6:38

Internationally renowned edible wild plant expert Frank Cook continues his gentle amble around the Dartington Forest Garden and talks about the importance of Black Currant (Ribes nigrum).

Although most folk might think Black Currant is a cultivated plant, it is in fact native and can be found wild in Britain, usually in fens and wet woods.

If you have a garden, then Black Currant is great for shady areas. Plus it’s a perennial so no need to toil every year to get your food, just plant, tend and share.

Running time: 2:37

In this 2 part video series Frank Cook discusses the many uses of edible Dock (Rumex) as wild food and herbal medicine.

Dock (Rumex) is part of the Buckwheat family (Polygonaceae).

In the UK the two common species that you are likely to have come across are, Broad Leaved Dock (Rumex obtusifolius), and Curled Dock (Rumex crispus), which in the US is called Yellow Dock.

According to Frank Cook it’s famous for its ascorbic acid content and was used in the past to treat scurvy. Useful also combined as a herbal tea mix.

Dock is edible all year round. However as Frank points out, we are all individuals (bio-individuality) and as a result what is flavoursome to one person may not be to another. It all depends on how much you have integrated wild foods into your own diet.

Personally I have found that my sense of smell and taste have radically changed since I started consuming wild foods. So remember to take it nice and slow, and play with the abundance of wild foods that you find locally.

Edible Dock – Video 1

Edible Dock – Video 2

When I was first starting out immersing myself in wild foods I sampled a few flower heads of the Meadow Buttercup (Ranunculus acris). I found them very hot and peppery, and rather pleasant. Only later that day after reading up on the Buttercup family (Ranunculaceae) did I realise that I was eating a poisonous plant!

Fortunately I was just sampling this plant, so I only ate 2 or 3 flower heads which wasn’t enough to make me sick.

I keep banging on about making certain that you are 100% clear in your identification of a plant and whether it is edible, but it really is important.

Just because a plant “looks” inviting, doesn’t mean you can eat it, even if it initially tastes somewhat pleasant.

In the same breath eating wild foods is all about self-responsibility and self-reliance. If you go into your local landbase with a lack of awareness and start munching your way through everything that “looks” edible, you might be in for a rude awakening.

I fully encourage you to explore wild foods as it is a truly fascinating and enchanting journey, and although I hold up warning signs here and there, don’t let them put you off.

This plant journey is like a gentle walk down an overgrown country lane. Take it slow and easy, and keep your eyes open, for you will discover aspects of yourself that you thought you had lost, or didn’t even know you had, and the journey is truly awe-filled.

As Frank Cook points out in this video there is a spectrum that plants lie on that ranges between Food-Medicine-Poison. Buttercup is in the Medicine-Poison section.

As Frank points out, there are powerful medicinal members of this family (Ranunculaceae)  which includes Black Cohosh (Cimicifuga racemosa), Goldenseal (Hydrastis canadensis) to name a few.

Yet more gentle wisdom from this fascinating plant teacher.

A short video where Frank Cook talks about how to approach a plant depending on the type of plant part you are wanting to work with.

- Roots: Deep hardy things, and medicines for deep chronic problems.

- Stem: Structural support.

- Leaves: Nutrients.

- Flowers: Mental, emotional states.

- Seeds: Are for the next generation.

When you go after a plant for harvesting, then go to it when it’s peaking at the part of the plant that you want to use.

Did you know that worldwide there are more than 200 species of the Pine Family, and many of them have edible pine needles, and nuts (seeds).

In this short video Frank Cook (global wild food expert) discusses the many uses of the Pine Family both as a wild food, and medicinally.

Frank reveals that Pine needles are a rich source of Vitamin C., and explains why it is unnecessary to buy Vitamin C. supplements.

He goes on to show you why Pine is such an incredible source of food. For instance did you know that Pine pollen is extremely high in protein? Did you know that Pine helps build and maintain testosterone in the body?

Watch and learn from this master of the plant world.