Eating Wild Japan: Tracking the Culture of Foraged Foods, with a Guide to Plants and Recipes

by Winifred Bird, Paul Poynter (Illustrator)

From bracken to butterbur to "princess" bamboo, some of Japan's most iconic foods are foraged, not grown, in its forests, fields, and coastal waters--yet most Westerners have never heard of them.

In this book, journalist Winifred Bird eats her way from one end of the country to the other in search of the hidden stories of Japan's wild foods, the people who pick them, and the places whose histories they've shaped.

"A beautiful and thoughtful exploration of the deep relationship--past and present--between people and wild plants in one of the world's richest foraging regions."—Samuel Thayer, author of Incredible Wild Edibles and The Forager's Harvest

Genres: Japan, Nonfiction, Nature, Cookbooks, Japanese Literature, Food History, Food

264 pages, Paperback

First published March 9, 2021

Reviews

[Evelina | AvalinahsBooks · Rating 4 out of 5]

How I read this: Free ebook copy received through Edelweiss

4.5 stars

This book was incredibly interesting. While I have never been to Japan (sigh...), I have grown up in a country where foraging for mushrooms is common and normal. We would go on mushroom picking trips to the forest every autumn, ever since I was a little kid, and many other families did as well. The custom is sadly slowly fading out, but it's still quite normal to do it. So having grown up with it, I know what a rare treat foraging and actually FINDING stuff is. I sometimes wonder whether we tap into our ancient brain when we go picking mushrooms or berries - because there's certainly a high associated with finding them - at least for me, and it's a high like no other. It wouldn't surprise me if my brain still rewards me for accomplishing something my great great great grandmothers needed simply to survive.

So reading about foraging in a country whose culture I really admire was truly magical. I have never had or seen most of the plants mentioned there, but what is Google for anyway? Naturally, I spent the entire book googling the plants and fawning over imagined dishes with them. It was so interesting to learn that people apparently still forage a lot for wild vegetables - that's so interesting, because while it's completely normal to forage for wild strawberry, huckleberry, cranberry and mushrooms here, greens are just not something we pick (possibly due to the climate or simple widespread traditions of agriculture). Now more than ever I want to go visit Japan and find some local small farm to visit where I could taste some of these foods!

The book also includes recipes, but I don't know how useful they are outside of Japan. The author does mention some substitutions, but the recipes are mostly meant for foraged plants in Japan. For some of them, maybe they could be grown in your garden too, but since I'm not a gardener, I wasn't familiar with the names. However, if you are, you might know them, as the author includes both the English and the original Japanese names as well. She does mention in a couple of places where you could buy it if you're outside of Japan.

It also includes some pleasant, black and white line drawings that complement the essays and the recipes.

It was definitely not a standard type of book - I've never read one where it's not specifically a recipe book, but rather these essays about food and the history of foraging in Japan, historical methods of gathering and working the materials, with some recipes and ideas interspersed in between of the stories. I liked this format - it felt as if I was hanging out in someone's home, and they were telling me stories while I was also watching them cook and teach me the recipe. I would love to read more books in this format.

I thank the publisher for giving me a free copy of the ebook in exchange to my honest review. This has not affected my opinion.

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[Alicia Bayer · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read this book as an American forager. Our family forages hundreds of pounds of wild foods a year and they make up a big part of our diet. We forage wild asparagus, mushrooms, elderberries, acorns (once processed they make a fantastic flour), ramps, lambs quarters, apples, pears, gooseberries, raspberries, wood sorrel, dandelions and their flowers, nettles and much more. I wouldn't want to live without foraged foods, not just because they're free and incredibly healthy but also because they just taste so much better than most grocery store produce. We also forage for a lot of medicinal plants like plantain, elderberries, mullein, etc.

I was hoping to find a sort of kinship in this book and learn how people on the other side of the world use wild plants in similar and different ways from the ways we do. This book didn't really hit that mark. There's more talk of a few people doing really complicated ways of foraging and processing foods in traditional ways than just modern Japanese people subsisting on the delicious and healthy wild plants that are all around.

At one of our local foraging spots, we frequently run into Hmong families that harvest completely different greens than we do. One morning, my teenage daughter and one such family tried to communicate with each other about what they were each harvesting. For our family, it was spring ramps and nettles (one of the healthiest wild plants in the world, and surprisingly tasty once you blanch them and remove the sting or blend them in smoothies). My husband and daughter didn't recognize the greens they were harvesting but they seemed very enthusiastic about them. I was hoping to learn more about the plants that might be loved in other places and go unappreciated here, or to even learn new ways of enjoying plants that are found in both regions.

This was definitely an interesting book. I was often saddened about how much is being lost in Japan in terms of both nature and traditions (Bird describes massive trees that are being purchased from rural families so companies can use them to make one-slab tables for very rich people from the giant trunks, for instance). It almost seems like a tribute to the past rather than a modern foraging guide for Japan. It is fascinating and well written, but probably not ultimately helpful for those interested in actually foraging either in Japan or elsewhere.

I read a temporary digital ARC of this book for review.

[The Sassy Bookworm · Rating 4 out of 5]

⭐⭐⭐⭐

PROS
-- Well written
-- Author passionate about the subject
-- Informative
-- Entertaining
-- Wonderful poetry
-- Recipes
-- Beautiful illustrations

CONS
-- Very specific to Japan so I am not sure how easy it would be to make a lot of the recipes

**ARC Via NetGalley**

[Books on Asia · Rating 3 out of 5]

I applaud Winifred Bird for her research and for bringing awareness of Japanese foraged foods to the forefront in this book. Her prose is often beautiful and she clearly has a passion for the subject (if not always its tastes). One Japanese concept that threw me for a loop when I first came to Japan was the idea that many foods are eaten here because they are good for you, not because they taste good. This was a revolutionary concept to me, and is a good reminder of what food should ultimately be: healthy.

I would have enjoyed this book much more if it hadn't been trying to be so many things: a guide to Japanese plants (for those living elsewhere), a cookbook, and a travel-journal. To me there was a lack of cohesiveness throughout; it lacked something like a narrative to pull all the sundry parts together. The first part of the book is essays which cover the author's travels around Japan to uncover the secrets of foraging. We are introduced to a bevy of plants in the first chapter that I'd never heard of, despite being given their English translations. So I really had no idea what the author was talking about through much of this chapter. The second chapter on Horse Chestnuts, another unfamiliar plant, was much easier to grasp because of its singularity: a tree, its history, and nuts that look like buckeyes. Chapter four covered bamboo and bamboo shoots, which almost everyone has heard of and can picture. So I wondered why we were presented with such challenging plants in chapter one, rather than building up in a more incremental style, say from bamboo to unheard-of-weeds. Even if each chapter included a drawing of the plant at the beginning, or a collage of such plants that would be introduced in the each chapter would have been a huge help.

There is an index in the back of the book that explains what all these plants are, along with illustrations, which is invaluable. Since I was reading the e-book version, it was very difficult to flip back and forth. Something like internal links, or even page numbers, would have been helpful. As a result, I recommend reading the print version of this book, and reading the index of plants first, to familiarize yourself, before delving into chapter one of the essays.

The essays were interesting, but lacked the story-telling aspect that makes travel writing compelling. Merely being introduced to people the author met and summarizing what they said or taught her is not enough on its own. Bird excels at describing characters, what they're wearing, and giving clues to their personality, but the characters are rarely given their own voices. Instead, the author interprets everything through her own lens, which makes the reading seem academic and dry. A couple times a sister and an infant appear with nary an explanation of why these travel companions are with her and why they suddenly appear out of nowhere. I felt like the essays would have been better presented as stand-alone essays rather than as part of a travelogue (which requires coherence).

At any rate, despite these frustrations with the book, I'm glad I read it and I hope to use the information to expand my nascent foraging activities. I don't think you'll find the information in this book anywhere else! So kudos to Winifred Bird, blazer of new trails.

[Story Circle Book Reviews · Rating 4 out of 5]

Eating Wild Japan is a book about exploring relationships between culture, time, eating well, and the wild plants all around us. Winifred Bird’s fascination with her topic and her eagerness to share shine through. She is clearly passionate about foraging in general, and particularly in Japan. The author spent three years researching this book after living in Japan for nine years and it shows.

The book is divided into three parts: a collection of essays; an illustrated guide to plants and Japanese wild foods; and recipes. All three parts emphasize the culinary, cultural, and historical roles of foraged wild foods in Japan. Bird includes delightfully simple line drawings of plants and tools used for foraging in Japan.

The Japanese word sansai (山菜) means mountain vegetables, and traditionally refers to vegetables that grow naturally and are foraged in the wild rather than cultivated. Bird writes extensively on sansai, including its ecological impact, health benefits, and expression of hospitality. She dives into the history of sansai and the impact that agriculture has had on the tradition.

Japanese historically forage for bamboo shoots, chestnuts and other plants; but foraging is not limited to Japan’s mountainsides. Bird tells of the “sea folk” (primarily women) who dive deep to gather seaweed, oysters and other ocean delicacies.

She reminds the reader throughout that foraging is part of many cultures. Although the onset of an agricultural society has diminished its importance, in some cultures it has remained as a task essential for survival (most notably during times of famine) or as the source of delicacies—or both. She contemplates the dichotomy of this “paradoxical judgement,” concluding that “agriculture makes wild foods abnormal, and there are always two sides to abnormality: despicable aberrance and sought-after rarity.”

Eating Wild Japan is a rare peek at a small but engaging piece of life on Earth. Perhaps Winifred Bird, with this book, can lead an effort to carry on the tradition of preparing foraged foods as one more way to shrink our individual ecological footsteps. If nothing else, she teaches us old ideas that could become new ideas and another way to appreciate what we have and the joy of living in a smaller space. I was reminded of myself as a child, following my great-grandmother into the woods in search of sassafras leaves to be ground with a pestle into filé, an essential herb for gumbo and other dishes common to our region and heritage.

Eating Wild Japan is a charming escape, as well as a practical guide for those who choose to explore on their own.

Story Circle Book Reviews thanks Regina Allen for this review.

[Kathleen · Rating 4 out of 5]

An informative and interesting guide to Sansai or wild plants, Eating Wild Japan is a blend of essays, illustrations and recipes. Winifred Bird lived in rural Japan for eight years and is well versed in the country’s history and culture.

The essays begin the book. Her essays feature weeds, horse chestnuts, fiddle leaf ferns, bamboo and seaweed. Her research introduces her to cooks, fisherman and farmers who
provide her with local legends as well as recipes. Bird describes how foraging in the woods for edible plants was once considered a sign of poverty. She is treated to a 12 course dinner, with all but one course featuring bamboo cooked in different styles. She compares wild captured seaweed to farmed seaweed and prefers the taste and texture of the former. She hears that the god of the mountains lives in horse chestnut trees. The plant guide is next. Beautifully illustrated in pen and ink by Paul Poynter, the guide lists the scientific name of each plant, its toxicity, how to prepare it and suggests several recipes. The recipes are the final section. Preceded by a definition of the Japanese terms, the recipes sound interesting and worth trying. The weakness here is that the ingredients are not readily available in American supermarkets. However, the strength of Eating Wild Japan is in the essays. 4 stars.

Thank you to NetGalley, Stone Bridge Press and Winifred Bird for this ARC.

[Opal Edgar · Rating 5 out of 5]

I come back from 7 years living in Japan and all I can say is how much I wish I’d had this book with me. This is an exquisite walk, research, cookbook on Japanese foraging culture. I lived in Tokyo so my contact to nature was not as extensive as if I’d been in a more rural area, but even then you can’t help but feel over there the importance of seasons and nature. It is not in any kind of sense that fight we forever portray in the West: nature vs culture, but it is very much an integral and celebrated part of life.
When it was the season I did forage ginkgo seeds (they are so delicious - i don’t know how I will live without) and wild purple shiso. And even in the middle of a megalopolis I enjoyed seeing strange seasonal vegetables appear in the supermarket. Ones I had never seen before with cryptic names like “mountain greens”... which were real wild plants. I enjoyed trying them out at home but would have loved having a guide and recipes which I never found online. The recipes in this book are simple and very authentic. I was glad to also see some Ainu recipes.
This book is everything I would have wished to have and more!

[Raven]

"The Afan Woodland is akin to what the Japanese call satoyama: neither wilderness nor tree farm, but instead a natural forest shaped by human use."

"Whenever a woman married, the villagers said, she was given a horse chestnut tree by her family--or more accurately, she was given the right to collect the nuts from a tree in her village."

"Success from a plant's perspective, however, looks remarkably like pestilence from a human one."

"A parent [bamboo] bears abundant children every other year for approximately six years. In order to keep track, farmers use a brush and ink to mark new stalks with a number indicating their birth year."

[Nyri Bakkalian · Rating 4 out of 5]

Review forthcoming at https://unseenjapan.com/

Update, 14 September: check out my review at https://unseenjapan.com/food-from-the...

[McKenzie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I found this little book to be a really fascinating read. There was something comforting about Bird's food based adventures and I have added a lot of things to my culinary bucket list because of this book. However, a lot of the "wild produce" discussed within these pages would not be available where I live, but there are a lot of related species that could be used as a substitute along with some more readily available specialty ingredients from the local Asian supermarket. I don't come from a background of foraging myself, but I'm feeling inspired to take a closer look at what could be available in my area. It's interesting to think that I could be supplementing my diet with some foraged local ingredients and get a bit of variety that other would overlook. Which, since I can't try Fuki, Gyoja Ninniku, and Warabi (at least right now), I think would make the author happy in a different way.

Thank you to Netgalley and Stone Bridge Press for providing me with an eARC of this book, however all thoughts and opinions are my own.

[Erin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thank you to NetGalley and Stone Bridge Press for giving me the opportunity to read Eating Wild Japan and provide an honest review. Congratulations to author Winifred Bird on this gorgeous book which was no doubt a labor of love.

Recently repatriated after having lived in Japan for a numbers of years, my family still has a running joke that everything green and not immediately identifiable is a "mountain vegetable". For that reason, the description of this book immediately appealed to me and I am delighted that it far exceeded my expectations.

Bird takes us on a journey to places not typically visited by a casual traveler and had access to the people who are using traditional techniques to forage for and prepare the ingredients they find. The author's thorough research and obvious ability to connect with people and tell their stories makes this book read like a wonderful mash-up of travel writing / food writing / cultural and character study. I love that each essay begins with a piece of poetry and concludes with a recipe. Many of the things foraged need to be manipulated to remove toxins or bitterness before cooking can even begin. Pairing that knowledge with the care taken in the many steps that are required in these precise recipes serves to reinforce the respect that the foragers have for their bounty.

I highly recommend this book and believe it will no doubt appeal to a wide range of curious readers. I am eagerly looking forward to its publication date so that I may purchase it in hardcover and add it to my library.

[Melissa · Rating 4 out of 5]

*This book was received from NetGalley as an advanced reviewer's copy.

Foraged foods have always been an interest to me. I can remember being little and going mushroom hunting with my uncle and dad. And later as an adult, I've attended foraging classes at a nearby homestead. Learning about other foragers in other areas is right up my alley as a result. And what better place than Japan, where ingredients are treated with respect in most cooking.

Bird, who lives in Japan, undertakes several trips to see the various foraging areas and specialties of Japan. This can range from ferns in the mountainside, to seaweed from the coast, with plenty of other edibles along the way. She also describes the history behind the foraged item (due to famine, scarcity, etc.) and how it has evolved in the culture.

Overall, it was a very easy reading book. Not too technical when describing the foods, but still with enough information to get an overall sense of what was being eaten and how it persisted in diets. The book also had a guide at the end (and recipes throughout) to give it a holistic approach.

Very interesting, and I can only hope if I ever get to travel to Japan, I will be able to try some of these foraged foods.

Review by M. Reynard 2021

[Venneh · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a fascinating look at foraging culture in Japan, and manages to be three books in one - a collection of personal essays, a field guide to identifying wild herbs and vegetables and how not to die eating them, and a small collection of recipes using these wild herbs and veggies. The essays are incredibly well written, especially the footnotes, the field guide is accessible. The odds that you’ll be in Japan and using these to cook is low, but the recipes are still very well done. Definitely pick this up if you get the chance.

[Leanne · Rating 5 out of 5]

Like clockwork, every year around the spring equinox, as the ducks and egrets return to the rivers and sprigs of green grass begin sprouting in lawns, people in Japan take to the hills to pick mountain vegetables, herbs and other wild foods. As translator and writer Winifred Bird explains in her new book, Eating Wild Japan: Tracking the Culture of Foraged Foods, with a Guide to Plants and Recipes, there is no common Japanese phrase that corresponds precisely to the English terms “wild food” or “foraged food”. In English, “wildcrafted” foods can include anything that is not a product of agriculture—from wild boar and wild mushrooms to dandelions picked in empty lots and seaweed collected on rocks along the seashore. Perhaps because wild foods have always been part of the Japanese way of “getting out in nature”, there is not an all-encompassing term. The closest word, muses Bird, is sansai, which denotes mountain vegetables and herbs and can sometimes include nuts and mushrooms.

In the fascinating introduction to her book, Bird considers the way in which these foraged foods have long existed alongside Japan’s rice-centered culture. Invoking anthropologist Emiko Ohnuki-Tierney’s classic book on the subject, Rice as Self, Bird reminds readers that rice has been the main ritual food of Shintoism and the staple of elite diets since it took hold in Japan over two thousand years ago. “Each grain,” she writes, “was thought to have a soul, and for many centuries people believed that consuming rice gave human beings sacred energy and power.” Paddy farming dictated how water was shared and how the landscape was divided up. And because taxes were based on rice harvests, the crop has always represented wealth, culture and the Japanese psyche itself.

Despite the supremacy of rice, wild foods have never really disappeared from the Japanese diet, Bird writes, in the same way they have in other countries. Of course, before agriculture, all foods were foraged. But even after the introduction of agriculture in Japan, the riches of the forests, rivers and oceans were a source of sustenance during times of famine. In her chapter on the horse chestnut, or tochi-no-mi, she describes how this wild food source served as the ultimate safety net against famine. It also formed a large part of the pre-agriculture-age diet of the Japanese. One Middle Jomon period gravesite, dating 2,500 to 1,500 BCE, found near the southern tip of Lake Biwa. uncovered a huge quantity of clam and nut shells that upon inspection were found to be mostly horse chestnuts. Archaeologists speculated that these horse chestnuts comprised thirty percent of the Jomon diet. In chapter two, she goes into the process by which the toxins are leached out of the horse chestnuts and a few ways that people still enjoy them today.

This is the terroir of seaweed and spring greens, of ferns and bamboo, of wild fish and foraged mushrooms.
Rest of my review at the Asian Review of Books

[LilliSt · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have received an advanced review copy via Netgalley in return for my honest opinion. Thank you!

5 stars - Beautifully compiled essays and useful information about foraging in Japan

Winifred Bird has put together an absolutely wonderful book on the cultural history of foraging food in Japan, completed by a guide to plants, recipes and a very thorough bibliography for anyone interested in further reading.
It is rounded off by absolutely beautiful illustrations by Paul Poynter.

The first half of the book is made up by 5 essays which focus on single plants or plant groups with the greatest historical relevance and impact, like the horse chestnut, bamboo shots or seaweeds. Those chapters are beautifully written and elegantly weave together the tales of her research travels, the cultural history of these foods and further musings on the philosophies of foraging. For anyone who likes foraging this will be a wonderful read, even if you have never been to Japan.

Next is a guide to the many plants mentioned in the previous chapters which provides plenty of useful information like the scientific name of the plant as well as the Japanese name(s) and also advice on how to prepare this plant and what type of recipes it lends itself to. This part will probably only be useful to a limited number of readers but I think it might work well for experienced foragers who will probably have access to several similar plants in their neck of the woods, since the scientific name makes it easy to identfy their international cousins. Bird herself mentions which plants in other parts of the world fall into those categories.

Finally, the last part of the book are the recipes. Since Japanese cooking uses categories of dishes who are all prepared similarly, this is a trove in disguise. The recipe section may look deceptively simple, but it covers all basic preparation methods (dressed foods, simmered dishes, pickles, braises, tempura, rice dishes etc.) with basic recipes and plenty of information which plants or plant types work for which type of preparation. Since Japanese condiments are readily available all over the world, the recipes can be used to prepare local foraged (or bought) food Japanese style.

The whole book speaks loudly of Winifred Bird's love of Japan and nature, her culinary curiosity and is throughly researched. It left me longing to go back to Japan was a joy to read. I am sure I will refer to it time and again to try out some of the recipes!

[My Goodreads · Rating 5 out of 5]

Winifred Bird's Eating Wild Japan is several things at once: travelogue, field guide, and cookbook, and does all of them well. A former journalist, Bird has a keen eye for the personalities, landscapes, and foods she encounters; her vivid descriptions and lively prose make for an engaging read. Bird wisely chooses to focus on the foraging and culinary subcultures of several locations on Japan's four main islands instead of writing an encyclopedia of every wild plant that has ever been foraged in the country. This lets her really dig into the history and sense of place of her chosen locations, and the people who live and forage there. This travelogue section of the book makes for fascinating reading. I particularly enjoyed the sections on seaweed and the food culture of northern Japan's indigenous Ainu.

The next section contains practical information on the plants Bird's discussed in the first section: what they're called, where to find them, what other plants one might confuse them with, and how to harvest and prepare them, and what Japanese foods they work best with. This section is information dense but still easy to read. The final section presents traditional recipes using each of Bird's featured plants. The instructions are easy to follow and the ingredients can be found in most major supermarkets. It also shouldn't be too difficult to substitute more commonly found vegetables or even foraged plants for anyone who doesn't have access to the wild Japanese plants Bird uses.

In several appendices, Bird lists the plants by Japanese, English, and scientific names, which will aid readers in identifying the plants or (for readers outside of Japan) their nearest available substitutes. I very much appreciated the inclusion of Japanese characters for the wild plants, and readers without a Japanese background will enjoy the thorough glossary explaining culinary and other terms.

This book is informative and a pleasure to read, and I'm eager to try these recipes.

[Ad · Rating 4 out of 5]

When spring arrives in Japan, the snow on the hills begins to melt, and a wide variety of wild herbs shoot up from the ground. Many of these plants are known as "sansai," wild herbs with often a characteristic bitter taste. They are shoots, buds, stems and leaves, and therefore sometimes at first appear to us as an exotic melange. Sansai plays an important role in "shojin ryori," the traditional vegetarian cuisine served in Buddhist temples. Although originally foraged, today most sansai are farmed, and they also appear on the shelves of some of the better supermarkets and gourmet stores. But wild specimens typically possess a more intense and stronger bitter flavor than cultivated ones.

Environmental journalist Winifred Bird became a fan of Japan's wild foods, and gathered the stories about the people who pick them and the role these plants play in Japanese culture. Those "essays on eating wild" make up the main part of the book. A second part (to me actually the most interesting section) is a guide to wild plants in Japan, from "fuki" to "mitsuba" and "myoga," and in a third section we get some recipes. An interesting one-of-its-kind book on the rare subject of sansai, Japan's wild food plants.

[Adela · Rating 5 out of 5]

I like Winifred Bird's environmental journalism, which always seems to cover a topic from multiple angles, and bring to life the people involved. I expected similar goodness from this book and wasn't disappointed. Bird approaches her foraging adventures with passion and critical appreciation, making me feel like I was right there with her tasting new foods.

I learned that foraging is a cuisine unto itself; just as French cuisine explores sauces simmered to perfection and Thai cuisine combines fresh flavours quickly, foraging has something to teach the food lover's palette.

I also got a kick out of meeting the many characters involved in Japan's foraging community. :)

What makes this book stand out from so many other environmentalist/hipster narratives is its self-reflection and introspection. Bird obviously loves eating wild foods and discusses it with like-minded people throughout Japan, but she never forgets to examine her beliefs or theirs. The tone is sort of, "I feel deep down this matters but does it really matter? We may never know. Let's go anyway and see what we can find out!" I wish more environmental writing was brave enough to be vulnerable.

[Amrita · Rating 5 out of 5]

My thanks to Netgalley and Stone Bridge Press for providing me with an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Winifred Bird's Eating Wild Japan is one of those books about a hyper specific subject that draws you in and allows you to explore an alternate reality for a brief period of time. Before I began reading this exquisitely researched and detailed book, I was aware of the foraging culture in Japan but I had no idea of the extent to which it infuses Japanese culture. So much of the writing about Japan can be fetishizing and problematic, it was wonderful to see someone pour their love and warm memories into a book. Winifred Bird has the ability to make the reader feel the weight and warmth of the hands that forage and process these bits of nature into delicate morsels of traditional food, the simple pride they take in their work, and the gratitude with which it is all consumed. I definitely intend to buy a physical copy of this for the illustrations and recipes. Recommended for all who love to read about food culture.

[Toni]

Written in the typical American journo-style, where the conceptual framework somehow always seem stronger than the final text, but still one of its kind. I wish it was more encyclopedic, anthropological or fashioned as a manual. There are bits in this book that are probably not available anywhere else in the English literature on Japanese sansai, esp. the stories about technique and tradition told orally to the author in various peripheral villages of Japan, and for that I'm happy to have read it. I especially liked the chapter on the Ainu, who are an indigenous people to Hokkaido, and have kept the foraging culture most alive - not as the opposing symbols of opulence or hunger, as it is otherwise portrayed in the civilized world - but as features of everyday life. As foraging could be again.

[V · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thanks to Netgalley, Winifred Bird, and Stone Bridge Press for the advance digital copy of Eating Wild Japan in exchange for my honest review. It is a wonderful compilation of history, plants and recipes. I'm a longtime gardener, really good home cook, and I love history, so this book hit on all points for me.
With the availability of food TV, Instagram, and apps (all of which I use and enjoy), I do still enjoy real books. This is one I would recommend as a detailed reference to Japanese regions, edible plants and how to cook with them. I especially enjoyed the extensive descriptions of plants, even though most aren't available in my region. Thank goodness for online suppliers, so I can try some of the great recipes.

[Sara · Rating 4 out of 5]

For those of us who've spent time in Japan, this book is a gold mine to enable us to identify the sansai that we often found in our soba. I was nervous that it was going to be all field guide and beyond my understanding, but that is not the case since it includes essays and recipes as well. This book fills a niche in the Japanese food book genre and will appreciate the foodies amongst us. The writing is also poetic and charming. Now, if we could only eat these delights outside of Japan!

Thank you to NetGalley for an advance copy of this book

[P.M.C. Smy · Rating 3 out of 5]

It’s a good book that captures the romance of rural japan and the current state of eating wild foraged foods. As some who lives in japan in a semi-rural area I found it inspiring and entertaining. I’ve eaten most of the things in this book, right from my own mountain!

But half the book is taken up with a plant guide that has very rough hand drawn sketches of the plants, making it kind of difficult to identify anything. And there is a huge caveat at the front of the book that it should not taken as a definitive guide (I.e don’t use it as a guide) so it all seems a bit pointless.

[Stacia Bell · Rating 5 out of 5]

A series of journalistic snapshots of pastoral Japan. Bird brings you along on her travels and shares her experiences, collected recipes, and passion for foraging and sansai. She seeks not only remnants of disappearing lifestyles and traditions but also for a better understanding of how our habits and values shape our culture and the world around us.

"When the ocean becomes something that flows in and out with the tides, simply a scenic location to visit, people stop treating it as valuable"
-Takahiko Ikemori

[Bethany · Rating 5 out of 5]

Knowing where our food comes from is important to many people. In Japan many restaurants can tell you where every ingredient is from and some can tell you who harvested that ingredient. This was a lovely further exploration of Japan's food culture. There is so much information to glean here on the people and the foods themselves. It was fascinating and a book I know I will revisit.

Thank you to the publisher for granting me an ARC on NetGalley.

[Kaz · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not only was this informative, it was also really fun reading experiences and stories that accompanied recipes! I love foraging and this definitely taught me a lot about it, albeit only being about Japan. It was a bit wordy at times but once you get used to it, you can learn a lot. Recipes, history, anecdotes, poetry, foraging tips, what more could you ask for?

[J · Rating 5 out of 5]

I’ve lived in Japan for a total of three years, but had never learned about sansai until now. I’d eaten some at the supermarket, but never knew any of the deeper culture behind it. Reading these essays gave me a deeper view of the food culture in the country I love, and brought up environmental problems I never thought of. Hopefully I’ll encounter these sansai in the wild soon!

[Kash · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this book, and I read it predominantly while visiting the places outlined in the writing. I think what made it richer for me what that the author was also a foreigner who had spent time living in Japan, and I found her perspective on the significance of plants and culture in Japan easy to understand and relatable in how she made her discoveries.