Adventures in Edible Plant Foraging: Finding, Identifying, Harvesting, and Preparing Native and Invasive Wild Plants

by Karen Monger

Purchasing vegetables and leafy greens can become rather pricy. Moreover store-bought greens often contain unhealthy pesticides and chemicals that can be harmful to your health. Foraging for wild plants is a cost effective and healthy alternative. Harvested wild plants are cheaper, and much healthier with a significantly higher nutritional value than what you typically purchase in grocery stores contain. On top of that, harvesting your own plants will force you to get out, exercise, and explore the great outdoors, which is an excellent way to stay fit and spend time with your family.

Written with novice foragers in mind, Adventures in Edible Plant Foraging , serves as a simplified guide to edible plants that can be found throughout North America, and includes a glossary of botanical terms. This all encompassing guide will teach you how to prepare for your first foray into foraging—what to bring and what to watch out for—and show you how to identify various edible wild plants native to your own backyard, the forest, fields and the sandy shores along lakes and beaches.

With over 90 full color photographs and 20 recipes for soups, salads, muffins, desserts, and more, this book is a must have for anyone looking to save money and begin their first expedition into foraging.

Genres: Nonfiction, Gardening, Survival, Green

232 pages, Paperback

First published February 2, 2016

Reviews

[OneDayI'll · Rating 5 out of 5]

THE most sensible foraging book I've found yet

Ok, I'm going to rave a moment here. This is an amazingly comprehensive book. It starts with a safety introduction, making sure you know to identify, how to do safety tests, items you can use around the house for collection so you don't spend a fortune on fancy gear and everything you need to know before getting started. Then it goes by category: leaves and flowers and stems, then berries, then roots, then nuts. It gives pictures of flowers, leaves and other identifying features. It includes uses and recipes, how to harvest and store. It has a glossary and index. It is easily understandable, and what isn't, well, check the glossary. The author put a LOT of time and effort into this and it shows. The book even includes a checklist/guide of when to look for what. The author includes how to sustain the foraging by explaining how not to over harvest, damage or otherwise impede future sustainability. And even explains what is native (so easily found locally), invasive (usually encouraged to be harvested because it decimated native flora and fauna habitats) and what is most abundant (termed by author as a super forager) where. That this book was a freebie grab I found in a cookbook search flabbergasts me. What an amazing find.

And, because I'm picky about such things, even the editing was well done. No run-ons, no misspellings (that I caught on a skimming first read through), no odd homonym swaps. The only, only thing I could possibly complain about is maybe a word of warning to pregnant women about stinging nettle as it can cause contractions. And people on blood thinners and some diabetic medications should avoid it, too. Yes, people should do independent research, but especially the nettle issue should be mentioned because a pregnant woman foraging could end tragically. Beyond that, this is just a wonderful compilation.

[Sandy D. · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good introduction to foraging, with a recipe or two for each featured plant. Nice photographs.

[Stevie Lacika · Rating 5 out of 5]

An exceptionally excellent book that every North American forager should have in their kitchen.
This is a great book for anyone, beginners or advanced foragers.
What I love most about this book that many foraging books do not have, is that it covers how to forage and prepare INVASIVE species. Which is actually the reason I got it, I don’t think I’ve ever seen any other foraging books include invasive species of North America.
It’s very informational, good introduction of information and gives background how to be a sustainable and ethical forager.
This book has a plethora of amazing recipes. I’ve made and tried a few myself, they are truly tasteful.
Overall it deserves a solid five star rating.

[Emily]

More of a lifestyle product (glossy, heavy) than a field guide (the photographs are nice). Probably oversells the appeal to children of traipsing through Nature with the bugs and the collection buckets. The tell is the recipes, which are IG/bougie-gourmet presentations of weeds.

Okay as a gateway product, or to ideate about serving forest litter to your consumerist friends.

DNF, not rated

[Valleri · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book offered some truly educational tips to find edible plants in the wild, how to preserve them, and how to safely enjoy them as well. The addition of pictures was incredibly helpful when attempting to identify various plant species.

[River Jacobs · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was super duper comprehensive and helpful! They even included a bit of tobits from their life to encourage foraging and seeking out education about it. Very informative, loved the way it was layed out!

[Amaya Cooper · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a good book with lots of facts. I liked the recipes it gave and the amount of detail.

[Ava Grace · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great information

[J. T. K. Tobin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great intro to plant identification and foraging. The recipes for each plant was a nice touch.

[Laura · Rating 4 out of 5]

Although I found the layout more difficult to get into I really enjoyed the information in the book and found that there was a lot more depth about preparation and use of the plants.
I also enjoyed the more than basic recipies included. One to definitely go back to.

[Library Angel · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book has nice, clear pictures.