10 Responses to “The Forager’s Harvest: A Guide to Identifying, Harvesting, and Preparing Edible Wild Plants”

1. Erik M. Smith Says:
   

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   This book offers an excellent introducion to the practice of wild plant harvesting. Not only are the plants discussed (in great detail), but the author includes many personal experiences and additional information (the first 75 pages – timing, storage, etc.) – including recomendations on further book resources. The descriptions of the two dozen or so plants are extensive. The book gives information on ID, range, harvesting, and preparation. I live in Washington State, though, and I have only found about 11 of the plant species readily available here (Choke Cherry, Wapato, Butternut(in urban settings), Black Locust, Cattail, Stinging Nettle, Serviceberry, Sumac (Staghorn), Linden (urban ornamental), Burdock, and Thistle). The book is still a wealth of inforomation and a very valuable resource.

2. William Smith Says:
   

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   I have 3 books on wild food foraging, including Angier’s Wild Edibles and Gibbons Stalking the Wild Asparagus. Both those books are very good for plant details except they rely on hand drawn depictions for the plants, which it makes them close to useless for accurate identification. Forager’s Harvest is the BEST book of the three for getting a beginner started. Lots and lots of nice color photographs of the plants. When choosing a book in getting started in foraging, you must have color photographs, there is no substitute.

   Forager’s Harvest, unlike Gibbons and Angier books, does not overwhelm the reader with large numbers of edible plants, choosing to focus on a lower but still fairly good number of readily found and easily identitified plants for foraging. This increases the reader confidence and starts them off gradually.

   If you are starting out in foraging, this is the book you should get. If you are botanist and have no problems identifying plants them Gibbons or Angier books might suit you better. As I am a beginner, I can say that of the three books, Forager’s Harvest if the book that I will be using in my plant foraging expeditions. I wish I had gotten this book first.

3. Amanda Says:
   

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   Not since Euell Gibbons has an author approached the topic of wild foods with this degree of authority, precision, and personality.

   Forager’s Harvest is appropriate for experienced and novice foragers alike. The layout is very accessible; the book begins with a couple introductory chapters on foraging and tips for identification, safety, and harvesting, processing, and storing wild edibles. Thayer then offers detailed accounts of more than 30 plants, including technical and personal information in clear, understandable, and personal language. In a very user-friendly manner, Thayer explains much of botanical jargon–sometimes essential for accurate plant identification–that might confuse beginners (there is an excellent glossary with several illustrations). The pictures (many included for each plant) are exceptional in quality and purpose. Above all, the book is a good read; the information is excellent and often entertaining as Thayer is not afraid to reveal a little of his wit and personality through The Forager’s Harvest.

4. NightOwlBookstore Says:
   

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   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.

5. MakerDave Says:
   

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   Thayer’s book is exactly what outdoor enthusiasts, adventurous cooks, and survivalists have been waiting for. If you fit any of these three categories, buy this book immediately; you will love it. Though the book focuses primarily on the northeastern US, I live in Texas and have locally found most of the species identified in the book. Chances are that if you live anywhere in the US, you are within a few blocks of at least one of the included plants.

   Firstly, let me say this book does right what virtually all other field and identification guides do wrong: everything. The author includes numerous color photographs of every one of the plants mentioned, and all the information you could ever want to know about each. The written descriptions alone are so thorough that I feel that I could identify several of the included species with no photos or illustrations whatsoever.

   Notably, the author goes to great lengths to point out the differences in the covered species and toxic or distasteful look-alike plants, listing several giveaway distinctions and providing side-by-side comparison photos. Though the book is detailed enough to satisfy a proud botanist, the author puts the information well within the grasp of beginners who know nothing about plants.

   For each edible species, the author lists multiple uses for almost all the edible parts of the plant. Impressively, when the author lacks experience on preparing a plant a certain way, he is open with us and says so. This is a nice contrast to other field guides, whose authors are apparently the world’s foremost experts on everything. Thayer debunks several shocking and dangerous inaccuracies in the other guides, and this information alone makes the book well worth purchasing if you have read even one other field guide.

   The only possible criticism I could conceive for this book is that it does not cover as many plants as the know-it-all guides that only briefly cover each species. I’m actually quite glad this is the case, and he did not instead decide to include more plants with less information about each, as so many of the other field guides do. Thayer identifies 32 plants, of which virtually all are actually families of closely-related species (usually all edible as well), and of which almost all have multiple edible parts and uses throughout the year.

   I cannot recommend this book enough. If you have at least enough interest in wild foods or the outdoors to have even made it to this review, purchase this book right away. You’ll be glad you did.

6. Washu-chan Says:
   

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   I am a botanist and I’m in love with this book. Admittedly, it treats only a few dozen plants, but each is described in detail, with methods of distinguishing it in the field from similar species, harvesting, and preparing it. Numerous color photos are very useful. There are good general discussions of plant identification, harvesting, and preservation. The author complains about previous edible plant references, which exhaustively list hundreds of plants but give inadequate information on each, and frequently recycle information from previous literature, allowing misinformation to creep in (an undeniable problem). Thayer proposes that writers on edible plants should provide only information from their own experience or else specifically referenced information, a praiseworthy code of conduct and one that really makes this book shine. When he gives you detailed instructions for when and how to gather and prepare a plant, you know that he’s actually done it himself and it worked. I like his standards for the plants as well: Food should taste good! If it doesn’t taste good, he says, don’t eat it! So, while other books provide long lists of “survival foods” that would gag a goat, Thayer discusses only the plants that he actually enjoys eating. He tells you what sort of quality to expect in the final products, and whether they will be worth the work you put into them. The only volume I can recall seeing of remotely similar quality was Steve Brill’s book, which dealt with a different set of plants (emphasizing the common “weedy” species that Thayer is not particularly interested in), so if you already have Brill, you can buy this too. Otherwise, if you want to start learning to use edible wild plants, start with this volume.

7. Loretta C. Gartman Says:
   

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   This book is very well written and is very good for the novice as well as the experienced forager. It offers detailed description of how to identify and harvest a select number of plants. It doesn’t overwhelm a neophyte with too many plants while it provides enough to capture their interest. The photos of the actual plants and the parts that are edible add to its attractiveness to wild food enthusiasts. In addition to all this it offers methods of preparation explaining how to avoid mistakes that may leave some of these foods inpalatable. Another helpful part of the book is that it tells the reader the season in which to forage and where to find them. My husband and I are both wild food enthusiasts and began our life together foraging wild foods as graduate students with Euell Gibbons’ book, “Stalking the Wild Asparagus” since it was the only one available that we could afford at the time. We have continued to add to our collection of wild food books and we think that Sam Thayer is today’s new version of Euell Gibbons and that his book is a must for all wild foods enthusiasts.

8. Michael J Edelman Says:
   

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   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.

9. Oblio13 Says:
   

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   The best of the wild-edibles field guides. If I could only have one on my bookshelf, this would be it.

10. Sean E. Rowe Says:
    

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    I have been interested in wild edible plants for years but it wasn’t until i picked up a copy of Sam’s book that i became and avid forager.
    
    Subtle things that have to do with preperation of the plant, exactly what part of the plant, when to gather it specifically and how to correctly process wild food seems to remain mysteriously vacant from many wild food field guides out there today. Sam’s book goes deep into the preperation aspect of the plants where other books come up short.

    Granted, he doesn’t cover a volumous number of species in this book. However, what he does cover is laid out in exaustive detail. When so many plant books seem to be a regurgitation of the same information over and over again, Forager’s Harvest comes as a breath of fresh air.

    The subjects on milkweed and cattail alone are worth the price for this fine book. It’s obvious that Sam lives this stuff as it is evident by his meticulate records and passionate writing. I have found much of what is in this book to be true ( i haven’t harvested all the plants in this book yet.)

    I would totally recommend this book as “the book” to get if serious about harvesting wild plants. It may be helpful for beginer’s to also get a good solid plant id guide like ‘Newcombs Wildflower Guide’ and ‘Botany in a Day.’