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Title: The Forager's Harvest: A Guide to Identifying, Harvesting, and Preparing Edible Wild Plants
ISBN: 0976626608
Author:
Samuel Thayer
Publicate Date: 2006-05-15
Publish: 2006-05-15
List Price: $22.95
Average Customer Rating: 4.5
Format: Paperback
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Amazon Lowest New Price: $14.45
Amazon Lowest Used Price: $15.37
Amazon Merchant Price: $15.61
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| Customer Review: |
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1: It fills the void!
This book is unique in that it fills a big void in the other wild edible books out there. This void is filled mainly by the chapters entitled "Harvest and Preparation Methods for Wild Plant Foods" and "Storing Wild Foods". Thayer wrote this book with his experience and not what he has compiled from other books like so many others. It covers only 32 plants but they are very useful plants and it covers them in detail. I agree with other reviewers in that the book may only cover plants that are more common in the eastern U.S. but the author makes recommendations for other books that will cover what his book does not...and I can vouch that his recommendations are worth while. Great pictures, a useful glossary and the verbal content is not only an enjoyable read but overwhelmingly informative. Despite the fact that this book is a softcover, the quality of the pages and binding will seemingly make it a durable guide for field use and the repeated referencing I intend to give it. Regardless of where you live, if you are a serious forager or survival enthusiast your library should not be without this book!
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2: Outstanding for the upper midwest
It would be a very difficult task indeed to create a book that really does a good job of treating edible wild plants from all of North America. The books that attempt to do so rely way too much on other written works (which have a lot of misinformation) and way too little on direct experience. Moreover, trying to cover a really broad range of plants means that the plants that are covered are treated rather superficially. Just like the best field guides are usually the field guides for a particular region (when these are available), the best wild food guides have a strong regional bias. My ONLY complaint about The Forager's Harvest is that the author does not spell out his region right up front, I had to infer it from the plants covered (he also mentions that he's based in northern Wisconsin somewhere in the intro). I happen to live in the upper midwest (northern Minnesota), and for that region, this is far and away the best wild edible plants reference I've ever seen.
Selection: He doesn't try to cover everything you might eat if you were desperate, he covers most of the plants you would want to eat because they taste good and have high nutritive value.
Harvesting: He covers where, when, and how to harvest in sufficient detail for each plant that you are unlikely to be put off by a bad experience.
Preparation: Details of preparation are critical. For example I've never seen in any book such detailed directions for HOW to get the starch out of a cattail rhizome.
Overall approach: He drives home the idea that real foraging is real work. You need to study, and you need to put in real time - but if you do so you can expect to have good quantities of excellent food.
All in all, a really outstanding book, unsurpassed for the region.
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3: Excellent book!
This book has great detailed information! It's been very useful to me when I've been out foraging.
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4: Disappointing for California Foragers
We vacation in the Sierra Nevada every summer and I wanted to start learning about foraging in these beautiful forests. Unfortunately, information for this area is sorely lacking in this volume. I'm sure the Indians who inhabited this area found plenty of wonderful plants to eat. Fortunately for them, they did not have to rely on this book. I will have to look elsewhere for a resource on plants of the Sierra.
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5: Excellent Guide for Identification
I can't add to the other reviewers' praises, but do want to add to the description of this fine book, because some readers have been disappointed that it doesn't apply to their region (e.g. west of the Rockies). It would have been helpful to find this in book's description, but since it isn't, I'll add it here. The author notes in his intro that this book should be useful to foragers everywhere, but particularly in these regions: GREAT LAKES, MIDWEST, NORTHEAST AND THE SOUTHERN PART OF EASTERN CANADA. Hope this helps future book-buying foragers, looking for guides best suited to their region.
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