Fieldwork: A Forager's Memoir

by Iliana Regan

From National Book Award–nominee Iliana Regan, a new memoir of her life and heritage as a forager, spanning her ancestry in Eastern Europe, her childhood in rural Indiana, and her new life set in the remote forests of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. Fieldwork explores how Regan’s complex gender identity informs her acclaimed work as a chef and her profound experience of the natural world. Not long after Iliana Regan’s celebrated debut, Burn the Place , became the first food-related title in four decades to become a National Book Award nominee in 2019, her career as a Michelin star–winning chef took a sharp turn north. Long based in Chicago, she and her new wife, Anna, decided to create a culinary destination, the Milkweed Inn, located in Michigan’s remote Upper Peninsula, where much of the food served to their guests would be foraged by Regan herself in the surrounding forest and nearby river. Part fresh challenge, part escape, Regan’s move to the forest was also a return to her rural roots, in an effort to deepen the intimate connection to nature and the land that she’d long expressed as a chef, but experienced most intensely growing up. On her family’s farm in rural Indiana, Regan was the beloved youngest in a family with three much older sisters. From a very early age, her relationship with her mother and father was shaped by her childhood identification as a boy. Her father treated her like the son he never had, and together they foraged for mushrooms, berries, herbs, and other wild food in the surrounding countryside―especially her grandfather’s nearby farm, where they also fished in its pond and young Iliana explored the accumulated family treasures stored in its dusty barn. Her father would share stories of his own grandmother, Busia, who’d helped run a family inn while growing up in eastern Europe, from which she imported her own wild legends of her native forests, before settling in Gary, Indiana, and opening Jennie’s Café, a restaurant that fed generations of local steelworkers. He also shared with Iliana a steady supply of sharp knives and―as she got older―guns. Iliana’s mother had family stories as well―not only of her own years marrying young, raising headstrong girls, and cooking at Jennie’s, but also of her father, Wayne, who spent much of his boyhood hunting with the men of his family in the frozen reaches of rural Canada. The stories from this side of Regan’s family are darker, riven with alcoholism and domestic strife too often expressed in the harm, physical and otherwise, perpetrated by men―harm men do to women and families, and harm men do to the entire landscapes they occupy. As Regan explores the ancient landscape of Michigan’s boreal forest, her stories of the land, its creatures, and its dazzling profusion of plant and vegetable life are interspersed with her and Anna’s efforts to make a home and a business of an inn that’s suddenly, as of their first full season there in 2020, empty of guests due to the COVID-19 pandemic. She discovers where the wild blueberry bushes bear tiny fruit, where to gather wood sorrel, and where and when the land’s different mushroom species appear―even as surrounding parcels of land are suddenly and violently decimated by logging crews that obliterate plant life and drive away the area’s birds. Along the way she struggles not only with the threat of COVID, but also with her personal and familial legacies of addiction, violence, fear, and obsession―all while she tries to conceive a child that she and her immune-compromised wife hope to raise in their new home. With Burn the Place , Regan announced herself as a writer whose extravagant, unconventional talents matched her abilities as a lauded chef. In Fieldwork , she digs even deeper to express the meaning and beauty we seek in the landscapes, and stories, that reveal the forces which inform, shape, and nurture our lives.

Genres: Memoir, Nonfiction, Nature, Food, Audiobook, LGBT, Queer

344 pages, Paperback

First published January 24, 2023

About the author

Iliana Regan is a self-taught chef. She is the founder and owner of the Michelin-starred “new gatherer” restaurant Elizabeth and the Japanese-inspired pub Kitsune, both located in Chicago. Her cuisine highlights her midwestern roots and the pure flavor of the often foraged ingredients of her upbringing. A James Beard Award and Jean Banchet Award nominee, Regan was named one of Food & Wine’s Best New Chefs 2016.

Reviews

[CaseyTheCanadianLesbrarian]

A DNF for two reasons: this is an unfortunate occurence of a memoirist who is not a performer doing a bad job narrating their own audiobook. There is weird emphasis and inflection, lack of pauses, and other stuff that actually affected my ability to understand what was a title, what was the end of a sentence, etc. So that was disorienting enough but the actual writing I also found strangely decontextualized. I wasn't sure how old the narrator was, what the situation was, and who people referred to by their first names were. This subject matter sounded really interesting but the writing is not effective at all for me.

[Anamaria · Rating 3 out of 5]

I listened to the audiobook and Iliana Regan is not a good narrator. She’s too soft spoken and monotone. But I also didn't enjoy the book. I didn't realize this was her second memoir and I didn't appreciate her references to her first memoir - like unless you list this as a sequel, you shouldn't need to read a first memoir to understand the author. And I feel like I was missing something. I also wanted more nature and less talking about butts.

As someone who loved Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer and is continually looking for nature memoirs that give me the same feelings and emotional investment Braiding Sweetgrass gave me, this did not do it for me.

[Alicia · Rating 2 out of 5]

I wanted to adore this book 😔 unfortunately, it was a DNF at halfway through it this morning.

The reason I was so drawn to this book, is because it is supposed to take place in the wilderness of the Upper Peninsula Of Michigan (the U.P.) where I grew up. I couldn’t wait to hear the authors thoughts on the place where I spent 10 formative years of my life. Sadly the majority of the book seems to take place in another state where the author grew up. and while yes, foraging plays a big part in her reminiscing (and the foraging parts were some of the parts of this book I liked best) this book seems mostly a memoir about her childhood. Which is fine. It’s just not what I was here for.

I was so excited about this book and wanted to hear about her & her wife’s life in the U.P., as well as their B&B in the woods they run. And more about the foraging she does there, and more on the forest destruction due to the logging industry there (who she only dives into fleetingly) Alas, those parts were too few and far between.

Besides that, so much of this book was rambling, disjointed and all over the place at times. Random passing thoughts put to paper.

It takes a lot for me to DNF a book. I try and always push through. It’s rare for me to quit and always a disappointment when I do. I just had to accept that I didn’t care enough about this book to continue. I’d rather spend the reading time I have on something I genuinely enjoy.

[Daniel · Rating 1 out of 5]

It was a force of will to finish this book. It honestly feels like a bait and switch based on the synopsis. This book is actually:

- 10% Foraging
- 20% Alcoholism
- 15% Ecofacist Ramblings About Humans As A Plague
- 20% Childhood Trauma
- 10% Imagined Memories from Before Birth
- 10% Grandma Stories
- 5% Gender Dysphoria
- 5% Imagined Descriptions of Parents Boning
- 5% Kissing/Tasting Things That Aren’t Food

If you’re listening to the audio book version even more condolences, the author narrates their own story and it’s terrible.

[Emily Anderson · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book will make you move slow, and I think that’s the point. It’s a walk in the woods.

I grew up on a farm in Iowa, and would need to change out the mushrooms for cows, but I found so many life parallels in Regan’s narrative. I’ve never had that before. It’s, uh, kinda eerie lol. But so *something* to be seen as a kid and a now.



**P.S. Somebody update the total page count to the right number, wouldya.

[Laurie · Rating 2 out of 5]

Quit around 60%. This is essentially the same as her first book, only longer. Very repetitive. The audiobook was narrated by the author herself this time and she sounded nearly as bored as I felt.

[cycads and ferns · Rating 3 out of 5]

…I want to tell you about…the mushroom, which is a beautiful and, in a sense, genderless organism. The spores come from the fruiting body….The spores are carried by the wind, on animals, the feathers of birds, the cuffs of our pants, and in the hairs of our arms….In the forest, hunting mushrooms…carrying our mesh sacks so that the spores would drop, ensuring reproduction, I felt like I was doing something worthwhile. I could exist in between. I didn't have to have to be one or the other. I was a catalyst.….I didn't have to be a certain thing to be in the forest. I just needed to love it and I did.

[Amy]

DNF. The author owns Milkweed Inn in the Michigan woods, where most of the foods are foraged and it will cost you $1500-$3500 per weekend to stay. Her memoir about foraging and cooking seemed interesting enough, but it didn't seem to be going anywhere. I was also weirded out by the extremely detailed recountings of childhood happenings, especially those from before she was born. I probably read a third of it before my library checkout ended, and I don't feel any compulsion to check it out again.

[Jenny · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.25 I may be biased as the U.P. of Michigan is my happy place, but I just thoroughly enjoyed this memoir. The author's descriptions of picking berries and foraging and cooking mushrooms made me want to run out and find my own paradise off the grid. She did not leave out any of the painful parts of her story, but somehow optimism and love of family still seemed to be at the heart of this book, a great read.

[Nicole Ficklin · Rating 5 out of 5]

the most GORGEOUS prose oh my goodness. This is 100% about foraging and also 100% about gender and family and the earth and memory and trauma and healing and also a whole lot of mushrooms. holy shit I loved it

[Mary · Rating 3 out of 5]

Eh i wasn't taken by this. It was kind of all over the place, repetitive in parts. I appreciated the woodsy-ness of it but often just wished it used a more straightforward narrative.

[Jeanette Michalets · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an unusual and eye-opening memoir. I wasn't smitten with the first chapter, but I became more engrossed in the author's, Iliana Regan's life, as the narrative progressed.

A former Michelin-starred chef, she and her wife, Anna, operate an off-the-grid inn in Northern Michigan called "Milkweed" where Regan forages for all types of foodstuffs from berries to nuts to mushrooms to enhance the meals she prepares for her guests. Many of her back-to-the land skills she learned from her parents and their parents before them. To say her childhood on a farm in Indiana in the 1980s was a bit rough and tumble would be an understatement, but still there was love from both parents along with the other familial components of alcoholism and an uncle who tried to seduce and abuse a five-year-old Regan.

From the time she was a young child, Regan wrestled with her sexuality and longed to be a boy. She also harbored a strong attachment to the land, to it flora and fauna, its dirt and bugs, and especially to its trees and mushrooms which were in abundance. She struggled with insecurities and fears, some of which were projected onto her by her father. But even though she often felt afraid or unsettled, it was in nature where she felt most at home, most comfortable.

When she and Anna bought their cabin in the U.P. she felt a homecoming of sorts to a place that felt as close to her childhood home as she was likely to get. Covid then happened and put the couple's new business in limbo while she and Anna lived there with their four dogs and pretty much just each other for company.

While I have always loved nature and animals myself, reading this memoir has taught me that I need to look harder to see all the amazing natural wonders that surround me, from the smallest ant to all the critters that come out at night, to the beauty of the stars, best seen in some remote spot like northern Michigan. This book also showed me how many wonderful foods can be found in nature.

While I wasn't blown away by the author's writing style in the first chapter, as the book progressed I was drawn in my her lyrical writing and her innate sense of the magic and the mystery that is in all of us and around all of us. This is an unconventional memoir that I recommend and one that I would not mind reading again.

[X]

DNF @ the end of Ch. 1. Too meandering for me (at least, at the moment).

[Kristen · Rating 4 out of 5]

So beautifully told; in such a beautiful and generous voice. Made me yearn for northern Michigan!

[Heather · Rating 3 out of 5]

I struggled to finish this one though I did love the UP connections and foraging info. I'd love to visit the Milkweed Inn for myself some day.

[Lily Kelsey · Rating 3 out of 5]

My opinion on this book is similar to a lot of others - I wanted to like it, but unfortunately did not. The flow of writing was disjointed, making it hard to read sentences that formed into paragraphs and then formed the story. A lot of random experiences were included by the author, some of which could have been cut, or opened up more and fleshed out.

I liked the imagery and writing of Regan's scenes while foraging and cooking, as you can tell that is a passion of theirs. Overall, I think the book needed more of a central point to focus the work.

[Rick · Rating 3 out of 5]

I tend to struggle with memoirs, and Fieldwork was no exception. My brain wants a solid narrative structure when it reads, and memoirs are designed to be a set of stories loosely connected. Even with that in mind, this book felt especially redundant throughout. Just a lot of the same thing being said in different chapters. It also felt like there were a lot of unfinished thoughts or insights. I was particularly interested in Regan's relationship to gender. She mentions her relationship with her father and how she was the "boy" of the family. She talks about feeling like a boy and wanting to be a boy. She has a whole chapter on mushrooms and their expansive combinations of gender. And yet, Regan never seems to connect that bridge between nature and the human gender spectrum. It felt like she was set in a binary mode of thinking when it came to human beings and gender identity. For me, it felt like an unfinished thought. I was also frustrated with the way Regan wanted to cover over the actions of people like her father, but not her uncle. Her father was clearly abusive. There was a story involving spousal rape (whether it specifically stated it as such) and he had massive anger issues which led to potentially murdering someone. Regan kept wanting to have the readers see him as a good person. I struggled with the inability to see his similarities to the uncle who was clearly described as a bad and unsafe human being to be around. It was a lack of awareness or a refusal to see reality that made me question the worth of the information being presented to an audience.

That being said, I was enthralled by the information related to foraging. I learned a lot. It was fascinating to hear how this knowledge was passed down through generations. And it was cool to see the way Regan and her wife used the world around them to give people a truly unique experience at their inn. Those pieces of the book are what made me want to stick around to the end. I was also able to be part of a group that heard Regan speak about the book, her time while writing it, and some more insight into her life. That helped to add some additional insight into what I was reading. Without that, I feel like I would have been much more disappointed in the book as a whole. In the end, I had a frustrating experience with this material. It feels unfair to say that about a person's real life, but at the same time, I cannot help the way it came off for me as a reader.

[Kathy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Once I started this, I found time in 24 hours to devour it. Sometimes when I read a book I really enjoy, the whole way through I want to tell so many of my friends to read it too. Of course, because I run a farmers market, this book is a fit for my homesteading, foraging badass farm girlfriends. As a coincidence, I saw Robin Wall Kimmerer speak just this afternoon at the local college and she talked about so many of the same ideas of reciprocality and giving to rather than taking from nature. And when she said, when I say the word “land,” what do you think if, and i know most of us, our first thought was “property”And pronouns we use for the natural world. She suggested, rather than it, using the pronoun Ki, which she pulled from her Native American language. The plural of Ki, she explained, is Kin. These anecdotes reminded me of the way Regan charms together ideas through memories and dreams. What a lucky and inspiring combination of ideas in a slim 24 hour period.

[Chris Brook · Rating 4 out of 5]

Gotta plead ignorant here. Wasn’t familiar with Regan or Milkweed (or Elizabeth) before starting this - didn’t read her first book either. Maybe that’s why this took longer than I thought it would to gel, mostly because I thought it was going to more of an instructive guide to foraging. Instead this was ultimately a very transporting memoir about food (lots of waxing poetic about duck blood soup, mushrooms, mulberries, etc.) and addiction. It's a little meandering and all over the place, jumping back and forth between time but contained some very honest and reflective passages that were really revealing. Never been to the Upper Peninsula but this does a great job bringing you there.

[Luca · Rating 3 out of 5]

I loved portions that shared Iliana Regan's wealth of foraging knowledge and her family's culinary history, as well as the often ingenious ways she incorporates wild flavors into her dishes. Some of the memoir portions were fascinating as well, particularly parts that explored her relationship to gender and the culture of her family. However, I found the writing overall to be a bit choppy and slogged through some chunks of this book. The 2nd person past tense voice felt weird to read like I was filtered away from what was being said. For sure glad that I read this.

[Jaime · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was rich and delicious in a million different ways. The way Regan weaves nature, food, and life’s meaning into an incredible mix of anecdotal messiness is masterful. It’s one thing to be a chef, it’s another to be a forager, and it’s a curse to be this good of a writer. Thank you Iliana for this gift.

[W · Rating 2 out of 5]

Tried to read as an audio book. Was really interested in content but the narration put me to sleep. What a disappointment. Author has an interesting story to tell but really should have hired a professional narrator. I finally couldn’t take it anymore after repeatedly trying to ignore the monotone reading. It was maddening. Too bad. Turned me off from seeking in print.

[Juj · Rating 3 out of 5]

this just wasn’t really for me unfortunately. i found this to be a little too meandering, even for me, and often repetitive. it needed to be significantly edited down and distilled to only the most interesting stories. also the way the author treats her partner in this was really strange and off-putting to me. it made me kind of uncomfortable at times. thanks to libro.fm for the ALC ✨

[Sara D · Rating 2 out of 5]

DNF. Unfortunately, I picked up the audiobook and the author’s voice is too flat to engage me. I also wasn’t a fan of the writing style, which seemed to meander from thought to thought and didn’t deliver on the promise of the book’s marketing that drew me in to begin with.

[Alison]

Maybe I'll come back to this one, but it was slow moving and I wasn't really vibing with the characters. I'm doing a Swedish Death Cleanse of my Goodreads "currently reading" list, so this is getting reshelved.

[Em · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book. She knows how to express nostalgia very well. Longer than the 250 pgs it says on this app though. Wasn't a quick read, but worth it

[Caroline Bean · Rating 2 out of 5]

Total slog, found myself skimming in parts. Repetitive yet missing key details that seem to be mentioned in previous memoir. Not at all what I was expecting.

[Attabey · Rating 1 out of 5]

DNF. I really wanted to like this one, cuz you know mushrooms and foraging. But the narration is terrible and the audio book even more so—sad

[Michelle · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved the writing style, the stories, the beautiful sights and smells and feelings that came up as I read. A new favorite for sure.

[Fran · Rating 4 out of 5]

I got swept up in this thoughtful, lyrical memoir about nature and food. It was a beautiful read!