SCOURING for snails in Crete, sampling exotic spices in Ethiopia and tasting pampered oysters in Tasmania – meet Elisabeth Luard, one of the food world’s most entertaining and evocative writers who has travelled the globe.

Later this month, her travels will bring the food writer to Dorchester Literary Festival on October 23 to share her supper stories and latest food memoir – Squirrel Pie.

Elisabeth has travelled extensively throughout her life, uncovering extraordinary ingredients in unusual places in her culinary tour of the globe.

With refreshing honesty and warmth, she recounts anecdotes of places she has visited. She describes encounters with a cellarer-in-chief and a mushroom-king, and explains why stress is good news for fruit and vegetables, and how to spot a truffle lurking under an oak tree.

But surprisingly, it was her children who first began her education in food. Catching up with Elisabeth ahead of her talk at Dorset County Museum, she said: “I had a young family and I was in the kitchen quite a lot. I had my children quite young and by 28 I had four under seven.”

The chef said she learned things through them every day as they picked wild food on their way home from school.

But as the children grew older, Elisabeth turned to educating herself and travelling to discover more. She developed an interest in Spanish food after being in Alcudia and is now known for her love of the country’s cuisine. She said: “It’s probably my go to comfort food – beans and bones, olive oil and something red.”

Ethiopian cuisine from her travels caught her attention too. She said: “There’s lots of really interesting things when you go to some places. I try to ask endless questions so it’s always very rewarding. I’m always watching, observing and admiring.”

The author advocates a healthy balanced diet to include all food groups, and not fads or microwave meals. Going back to the real food groups is the reason she loves to write about food.

She said: “If you go back to the source of a particular food you can see how it started and is balanced. Second, I love the idea of the storyline of food.”

Alongside her latest writings in Squirrel Pie sits simple and magical sketches of scenes from her travels and culinary treats.

Elisabeth said: “You can probably do a sketch in the same time as taking a picture and setting it up and it’s less invasive than a camera - that’s an intrusion. A sketch people can look at it so it’s a very friendly medium and a great interconnection – everyone understands it.”

Divided into four landscapes – rivers, islands, deserts and forests – Elisabeth’s stories are coupled with more than fifty authentic recipes, each one a reflection of its unique place of origin, including Boston beanpot, Hawaiian poke, Cretan bouboutie, mung-bean roti and Sardinian lemon macaroons and illustrated with Elisabeth’s own sketches.

The writer said she is looking forward to coming to Dorchester to share her recipe for success and stories from Squirrel Pie, and to also take questions from the audience.

She said: “Appreciate what people do and listen to what people say and allow them to tell you something new that you don’t know.”