The Forager's Harvest: A Guide to Identifying, Harvesting, and Preparing Edible Wild Plants | 
 enlarge | Author: Samuel Thayer
Publisher: Forager's Harvest Press
Category: Book
List Price: $22.95
Buy New: $15.61
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Avg. Customer Rating:  16 reviews
Sales Rank: 2681
Media: Paperback
Edition: 1
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 368
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.4
Dimensions (in): 8.8 x 6 x 0.7
ISBN: 0976626608
Dewey Decimal Number: 641.303
EAN: 9780976626602
ASIN: 0976626608
Publication Date: May 15, 2006
Shipping: Eligible for Super Saver Shipping
Availability: Usually ships in 1 to 3 weeks
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Product Description
A practical guide to all aspects of edible wild plants: finding and identifying them, their seasons of harvest, and their methods of collection and preparation. Each plant is discussed in great detail and accompanied by excellent color photographs. Includes an index, illustrated glossary, bibliography, and harvest calendar. The perfect guide for all experience levels.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 11 more reviews...
 Wishing for More May 23, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
The Forager's Harvest is a beautiful book that delivers on the whole. While I would love to see a series of photos that illustrate the plant from sprout through death, that would be asking a lot, and I could not hope for anyone to provide that. As it is, compared to many such books which feature only line drawings and confusing photos, this is a very good book. He does not try to blow air up anyone's skirt, telling us that this or that plant will save the world, or even provide the perfect entree. It does, instead, try to provide a balanced clear-eyed portrait of the edible plants the author is familiar with and makes no bones about his own peccadilloes.
For those of us who would like to see more localized guides which deal with specific biomes, those books will have to wait. In the on-coming post-oil world, these identification skills will separate the living from the dead. I continue to search for the most biome specific books hoping that someone with this knowledge will share it. Perhaps they realize that the last thing the wild needs is any more foragers to strip the ground clean.
For the photos alone, I would recommend this. If you are expecting the super-detailed information needed to be expert, this book cannot be it. No book could be. The indigenous populations, who knew this information, we killed off either literally or culturally, and that info is likely not coming back except through trial and error much as it accumulated pre-agriculture.
So, ultimately, buy it. Just don't expect too much, and you will not be disappointed.
Limited but in depth on what it covers May 9, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
This book inspired me to try eating the milkweed that is growing all over my back yard. Following the sniff-touch to tongue - taste - chew - swallow - wait 5 hrs sequence, we determined ours was edible. We have so far cooked up several plates of milkweed stems. They taste like asparagus but milder.
The book goes into some level of depth with the plants it covers, enough to give you some level of confidence. For a more comprehensive book, see the Peterson Guide.
 Greatest Forager Book Ever April 18, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I have bought many books on foraging and this is the best one yet. I know it doesn't cover everything, but it covers the easy ones and in great detail. You'll be able to harvest all edible parts of the plant and cook or eat fresh and enjoy them. After all my foraging reading, this is the book you want especially if your like me and want to learn it all today.
 I guess it's a good guide if you live east of the Rockies... March 7, 2008
13 out of 17 found this review helpful
I was interested in finding out what kind of plants were edible native to the Pacific Northwest area, where I live. Unfortunately there were very few edibles covered that grow in this area, which has some of the most awesome natural habitats around. Nothing on Red Huckelberries or Oregon Grape for example. Miners Lettuce? Forget it. Not a good guide if you're interested in foraging in the Pacific Northwest, didn't seem to be any indication of this bias in the Introduction or other clues contained therein... very disapointing.
The centerpiece of any library on edible plants February 18, 2008
5 out of 5 found this review helpful
I bought this volume based on the the remarks of the author of the lead review- a botanist by training. I'm very glad I did. Although I have a half-dozen other books on edible plants, this is far and away the best. For the beginner- or even the more experienced forager- there is simply no better volume on identifying edible plants. And as the author notes, many other volumes list plants that may be non-toxic, but are certainly unpalatable. This book concentrates on commonly found, readily identifiable, flavorful plants that can be found almost all across North America.
The author is unstinting in his criticism of books he finds useless or misleading, but similarly unstinting in his praise of those, like Euell Gibbons, he admires; he goes so far as to say that he doesn't include any real recipes beyond the most simple preparations as Gibbons does a far better job than he could do.
Strongly recommended for naturalists, gardeners, foragers, scout leaders, hunters, survivalists, and anyone who'd like to explore the wild garden growing around them.
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