A North American Field Guide to Over 200 Natural Foods

Alright this new edition is a good book. Lots of color pictures and good descriptions. There are some issues though. I live in Texas and either we don't have as many as other areas or they didn't really cover what we do have but there is hardly any of my local flora in that book. However it will still be in my day pack anywhere I go and as far as I have found this is better than most and as good as any.

So far one of the best field guides I have found so far. I like it's easy to read format. It's descriptions to identifying plants are awesome (doesn't leave you full of doubts). Has good information on how to eat them. Also it tells cautions of certain plants and the actual reason why and what to be cautious about. Also most of the pictures are great and large enough to see stuff in and you don't have to go find them, they are always next to the plants.

I have always been curious about feasting on a wild meal of plant life now I am well on my way. Great pictures and descriptions also tells you the plants that are edible for all of the different seasons

It's a good book but I wish hat some of the photos weren't in black and white so you can really see what they look like and I wish it told you what the edible plants taste like. It tells you how to cook them but some of the description on how to harvest are a little hard to understand.

Alright this new edition is a good book. Lots of color pictures and good descriptions. There are some issues though. I live in Texas and either we don't have as many as other areas or they didn't really cover what we do have but there is hardly any of my local flora in that book. However it will still be in my day pack anywhere I go and as far as I have found this is better than most and as good as any.

So far one of the best field guides I have found so far. I like it's easy to read format. It's descriptions to identifying plants are awesome (doesn't leave you full of doubts). Has good information on how to eat them. Also it tells cautions of certain plants and the actual reason why and what to be cautious about. Also most of the pictures are great and large enough to see stuff in and you don't have to go find them, they are always next to the plants.

I have always been curious about feasting on a wild meal of plant life now I am well on my way. Great pictures and descriptions also tells you the plants that are edible for all of the different seasons

It's a good book but I wish hat some of the photos weren't in black and white so you can really see what they look like and I wish it told you what the edible plants taste like. It tells you how to cook them but some of the description on how to harvest are a little hard to understand.

The one I got is paperback and I really like this guide it has a lot of color pictures, lots of information for a book you can put in your backpack,right size and light weight Very handy guide to take along on outdoor trips.

I finished the whole book, but i still read it again once in while just to look for thing to grow. Always bring it with me when i goes hiking.

Wish they have more plants, wish they have the biochemistry component of the plants, and their meditional value.

Beneficial foraging books
The opening paragraphs are designed to assist others avoid some of the pit falls I made in purchasing wild food literature. You can skip this and go directly to the individual book reviews if you choose. Please note that this review is of multiple wild food books. I prefer authors that work with the plants they are writing about, and don't just repeat things they read from another book (yes some wild food authors actually do that). I also prefer books with good descriptions, lots of photos of each plant to make identification easier, and to cover the plant from identification to the plate. That's my bias, here is my review.

I'm just a guy who likes to forage and enjoys the learning and nutritional aspect of wild foods. My main purpose for writing this review of multiple wild food books on one review is to assist others coming to wild foods for the first time (like I was three years ago), and to hopefully help them avoid some of the easily avoided pit falls I made in the literature I chose. At first I wanted books with the most plants in it for my money. It made sense to me at the time but ended up being a grave mistake. Books that devote one picture and a brief explanation to a plethera of plants helped me identify some plants in one stage of growth, but did next to nothing that would have allowed me to use them as food. Example, most books will show you one picture of the adult plant. Many times that's not when you want to harvest it. No one would eat a bannana that was over ripe and pure black and call banana's in general inedible due to that experience. Yet many who have sampled a dandelion have done exactly that. As I've learned from John Kallas, one has to have the right part of the plant (this includes proper identification of the plant), the plant has to be at the right stage of growth, and it has to be prepared properly. If you can't do those three things you shouldn't be sticking the plant in your mouth. Now on to the individual books.

Wild Edible Plants By John Kallas: 6 stars because it deserves more than 5

Instead of having hundreds of plants with one picture and one paragraph of information Kallas gives you less plants in far more detail and unmatched photography. If I could give this book to everyone in the United States I would as it is the best book I have found on the market. His descriptions of the plants are spot on and easy to read, his multiple full color pictures of each plant covered are the best I've seen in wild food literature, and he covers each plant from seedling to the dinner plate in stunning detail. If I could only own one book on wild edible foods this would be the one. No book can give you everything you need as a forager. That being said John does a superb job of plant selection in that most people in north america will be able to find all these plants within a mile of their home. For a guy taking care of two children under 3 years of age this book allowed me to forage while staying close to home. Consider this a must own. John also runs wild food adventures in Portland Oregon which offers wild food instruction in that area.

Nature's Garden By Samuel Thayer: 5.2 stars the second must own, and it too deserves more than 5 stars.

If I could only own two wild food books this would be the second one on my shelf next to John Kallas book. The section on Oaks and acorns are worth the price of the book by it self let alone the numerous other plants in it. Mr. Thayer uses color photographs at various stages of growth just like Kallas does. After you own Kallas book you will be hooked and Nature's Garden is the next logical progression in your journey. Other reviewers have covered Sam's brilliant rebutal to Jon Krakauer's propagandist poison plant fable of how Chris McCandless died. Chris died of starvation not a poisonous plant. Sam actually has this section of the book posted on his website for viewing (go to foragersharvest dot com), and is worth reading even if you don't buy the book. I really benefited from Sam's sections on the different wild lettuces, elderberries, thistles, and many others. On top of that Sam has the most engaging writing style of all the wild food authors I've encountered. Not only are his pictures only second to those of Kallas, his descriptions are spot on, and reading his books are like reading one of your favorite novels.

Foragers Harvest By Samuel Thayer 5 stars

I prefer Thayer's Nature's Garden over this book for my area. That being said I can't really say anything bad about this book. Good descriptions, excellent pictures at various stages of growth, good selection of plants, and done with accuracy. This book was to my knowledge the first of it's kind back when it was released back in the mid 2000's. To my knowledge it was the best book on the market then, and has only been surpassed by his follow up book Nature's Garden and Kallas Wild Edible Plants. Being the first book in this motif it (unjustly I might add) received numerous attacks by a few disgruntled souls on the stores book review section. One must remember Thayer was revolutionary in this field when he released this book, and people had a hard time adjusting. As my friend Stephen T. McCarthy once posted, "All truth passes through three stages: First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident. Well anyone who has used Sams books should understand the advantage of covering less plants in more detail than covering many plants with little to no detail like the over-hyped gimmick books that litter the wild food market do. I few things I really liked about this book include (but are not limited to): descriptions and photographs on cat tail, wapato, service berry, stinging and wood nettle. The canning section is solid for the beginning forager like I am. This in my opinion still fits the must own catagory.

Euell Gibbons, Stalking the Wild Asparagus 4.5 stars

Line drawings that are OK. Descriptions of the plants are excellent. Recipes are added by the author, plus his enthusiasm and good nature jump out at you through the page. I mostly use this book in conjunction with other books, and I never use it for it's photographs or line drawings. Not that their bad. Just not enough for a total novice in my opinion. Now his descriptions are excellent and should not be ignored.

Nancy J. Turner, "Food Plants Of Coastal First Peoples" and "Food Plants of Interior First Peoples" I'll give it 5 stars for ethnobotany and 4 stars as a foraging book.

If you live in the pacific northwest these books are MUST HAVES. A thorough grouping of the plants used by native americans for food in the pacific northwest. Why I only give it 4 stars is that it is essentially put in a field guide format which is very limiting when trying to use a plant for food. Plus while Turner is the queen of plants and uses in the pacific northwest, you'll only get a tenth of what she knows on any given plant. Kallas and Thayer go into much more detail, have numerous pictures, and lead their readers toward success. With Turner you'll get one good picture in one stage of growth. Through experience I've found that just isn't good enough. She does have more plants in her books than Kallas and Thayer but when you cover them in less detail that is to be expected. To be fair to Nancy I don't get the impression that these were designed specifically for foragers. All this being said I own them and wouldn't give them back if you paid me double what I paid for them.

Linda Runyan, The Essential Wild Food Survival Guide 3.8 stars, a good book.

Well first I do have some issues with this book: I'm not fond of the line drawings or black and white photos, she does edibility tests on wild foods and discovered many of them that way (which I'm not a fan of), and some of her descriptions are lacking in my opinion. All that being said she cans her wild foods, dries them for winter use, and lives off of wild edibles all year long successfully. She shares a lot of this knowledge with the reader in this book, and being a nurse myself I'm also able to relate to her thinking in a lot of ways. Plus her stories of using cat tail fluff as stuffing for a couch only to find out that it was infested with insect eggs was hilarious. She tells you all the mistakes she made so you don't have to repeat them. She will tell you to use two other good field guides along with hers. I would plan on not using hers at all for the pictures. I have issues with her lack of oversight on the pictures. I'm sure some will disagree but when Linda tells you in her video (by the same name) that her chickweed picture isn't very good it does bring to mind credibility questions.

Edible Wild Plants a North American Field Guide, by Elias and Dykemann. 3.5 stars

At one point in my very early stages I thought this book was the bomb. However, I would identify a plant, find it at times accidentally for the most part, and go "now what?" And that is the weakness of the field guide format in wild food literature (Thayer and Kallas do so much more for you). This book is almost the opposite of Linda Runyans in some ways. She doesn't give you good pictures but gives you some good details on what to do with the plant after you find it. This book gives you some good pitures, a brief description, and then says "your on your own kid." In Samuel Thayers "Foragers Harvest" he gives great descriptions between wood nettle and stinging nettle (both are edible when properly prepared). Thayer also happened to point out that this book actually has a picture of wood nettle and call it stinging nettle. I checked up on this, and lo and behold he was right. They have two pictures and one is wood nettle and one is stinging nettle. They are both listed as stinging nettle in the book. This tells me that the authors might not know all the plants as well as they should. Don't get me wrong I still like the book. But it does prove that wild food authors don't always use or know the plants their writing about.

Honorable mention goes to "Abundantly Wild" By Teresa Marrone. It is a wild food cook book. The pictures in the book are not great (though oddly beat many of the photos in supposed field guides) but I have read a few of the recipes and they look promising. I'll write a review about a year from now once I've put the book to the test. Until then I'll let you read the reviews on this book and make up your own mind.

Even though I haven't had a chance to get outside with this guide, I can tell it will a valuable guide to have with me as I hike and try to identify the native plants. The info is presented in plant families so it makes it easier to find the correct ID on what you have discovered. I will have it with me when I start hiking again in the spring.

Be warned that if you wanted to know if that mushroom you saw on that last hike is safe to eat that this book will not tell you. You don't find out until you read the (very small) text on the opening pages that nothing on mushrooms is included in this book. The other issue I have with the book is that the plants are not separated in the book by region of the country; to be fair, that info is in the description of the plant but you have to wade through the entire book to find the plants specific to your region of the country. Considering how much effort went into the color photos and glossy paper I'm surprised that more effort was not put into organization. I wanted something I could carry in a backpack but since there is no information on mushrooms this one will have to stay at home.

little disappointed, i was mostly interested in native Texas plants. This is for all north america. so flipping back and forth to find the regions, which are not listed on the page with plants, is a pain. but the info and photos are good.

The book has lots of colorful pictures which makes it great for easy identification of the plants. It has great information on the parts of the plants that are edible and the time of the year to gather.

I love this book, I use it everytime I'm out backpacking. Great for quick trail snacks plants in the book have a label if they are a quick pick on the trail type snack), also great for plants that you would have to cook. I hope they have a mushroom book just like this.

I thought the photos were horrible: too busy or too close-up, with no sense of the whole plant. Many are in high-contrast black-and-white as well -- totally useless. I can't imagine someone using these photos to identify plants they don't already know about, and then what's the point? I'll go back to using my Peterson's Guide to Edible Plants, which is full of very clear drawings (and a handful of good photos).

Disappointed. Separated by "spring" and "summer" offerings, I found little in either section that actually grows in my part of the country. Texas, New Mexico and surrounding areas are barely represented. If I had to rely on this book solely for food or survival, I'd starve. Lots of pretty pictures though so I'd have something to occupy my mind while I wasted away.

Call me ignorant or less intelligent than the author but my hopes were high when I purchased this book. And I purchased this book to see what edible plants are living on my property. What I have is a book with 400 illustrations and they confuse me. There are some photos and those I comprehend but the drawings will only have me guessing as to what is what. I would return this book but that is not my nature. I suppose I should have asked some questions or read a few reviews. That is my fault.

I will look for something else and donate this publication to someone.

Finally, I also ordered "Field Guide to Medicinal Plants and Herbs" and it is page after page of color photos - possibly 600 photos. This book I would highly recommend.

Gary

As someone that loves foraging for wild edible and medicinal plants, I have to say I was greatly disappointed with this book. 1) This book lacks clear identification images and pictures. It could easily cause any novice or even some enthusiasts to confuse a plant for another, which could be quite dangerous. 2) This book is definitely geared toward the eastern part of the united states, as such canadians and western states should avoid purchasing this book. 3) Many of the ranges are quite off. For example, Stinging nettle is wide throughout western North America; yet, it is listed as a north eastern range only. This plant is also native to western region!

My girlfriend is a nature woman and recently she has been mentioning how cool she thinks it would be to have a book that tells you what plants were edible in the forest/yard/wild. So I surprised her with this book and she and i were blown away at the quality of the book and the contents inside! Definitely something to have in the book collection/ camping sack

Though this book is comprehensive as far as how many plants it contains info about, it utilizes many terrible pictures that are virtually useless for identification. It gives the impression someone was just surfing the internet and pulled off whatever old photos and info was found. Also, the regional info isn't necessarily accurate. For example it doesn't show something as simple and obvious as blackberries as a plant that grows in Oklahoma. There are fields of blackberries around here. It makes me suspect of other info provided. This is probably a great resource as a starting point, but you will likely need much more to safely identify wild edibles or to learn what you might run across in your area.

I bought this book to use to gather wild plants for making homemade wines, but now it's a companion whenever I go hiking, fishing, camping, or merely sightseeing. It's that valuable!
The book is divided into an introductory section, guides to harvesting plants in each of the four seasons, the plants themselves (also presented seasonally), poisonous plants, a nutritional guide, and two great indices. The introduction includes great tips on how to prepare wild foods as drinks, snacks, entres, and condiments, along with recipes for 25 jellies, 20 jams and 17 fruit and berry pies. But the good part is yet to come.
Each plant is presented with a good-to-excellent photograph, a distribution map (so a person in the Pacific Northwest doesn't have to wonder whether he or she is looking at a squashberry or a hobblebush berry), a complete description, identification of the edible parts, harvest and preparation notes, related species, and poisonous look-alikes (if any). The presentations are just excellent. My only complaint is that the book isn't twice as thick.
Whether you just want to be prepared for emergencies or you want to collect wild edibles for making jams, jellies, pies, and wine, this book is one of the only two you'll probably need. The other is a good regional guide, because with over 20,000 species of plants to choose from north of the Rio Grande alone, a guide to regional edibles is a must.

Overall rating: 3 stars
Plant identification: 3 stars
Plant uses: 3 stars
Picture type(s): color photographs
Who will find it useful: novice foragers though more experienced forager might find a nugget or two of new information.

Notes: This is a very average book. The pictures are okay, the directions for preparing the plants are okay. It's main benefit is the large number of plants it contains. I also like the maps of where these plants are found, but these maps are somewhat inaccurate. This book is worth getting cheaply from a used book seller but I wouldn't buy a new copy.

This Outdoor Life Book, while it follows the typical field guide format with nice glossy pages and clear, crisp color identification photos with full plant descriptions, is jam-packed with not only the picture, plant name, habitat, and identification details but goes in-depth to clearly define those PARTS of the plant that are edible and how to prepare them (sometimes even including simple recipes). This guide is the most detailed edible plant guide I have found and offers great "extras" like a quick key guide that allows you to identify if a plant is trail nibble, salad addition, cooked green, underground vegetable, fritter, raw fruit, cooked fruit, jams/jellies/sauces, syrup/sugar, candy, grain, nuts/seeds, flour/meal, hot beverage, cold beverage, pickle, seasoning, or thickener. The "Poisonous look-alikes" feature is an added attraction within each plant description and there is also an entire poisonous plant section so there will be no mistake that what you have found Mother Nature meant you to harvest. A fabulous handbook for gardeners, hikers, and cooks.

This is one of the very best, easy to understand, well presented non-fiction books I have every read. And, the photos are outstanding as well. I highly recommend it for people who want to identify plants in their environment. It would be good to add to the family Emergency Disaster Kit, too.

This is the best purchase I have made with regards to edible wild plants. It is well organized with keys for quick referencing, details on where in the country to look and at what season merely with a glance at a table so you need not wade through the details to locate specific information on what is available at the time you are planning to search. You'll see all your target plants in a given season and where to locate them. The color photos are all great.

VERY NICE GUIDE. GOOD COLOR ILLUSTRATIONS, DESCRIPTIONS AND....IT TELLS YOU IF THERE IS A TOXIC MIMIC TO WATCH OUT FOR. NOW WE KNOW WHAT ALL THOSE DIFFERENT BERRIES ARE WE HAVE GROWING IN THE WOODS IN OUR BACKYARD!