Customer Reviews

Abundantly Wild: Collecting and Cooking Wild Edibles in the Upper Midwest

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I've included a list of reasons why or why not I would buy this book. I've read a few other books including: Foragers Harvest, Field Guide to Edible Wild Plants, Stalking the Wild Asparagus, and a couple others.
If you live in the Upper Midwest I would consider buying both this book and the Foragers Harvest.

Reasons For Purchasing:

1. Includes the most complete collection of edible wild plants for the Upper Midwest, and even shows range maps for several plants.
2. Shows images for almost all of the plants. (But not many on mushrooms)
3. Focuses on a specific area instead of wasting space listing foods in other parts of the country.
4. Has excellent organization.
5. Has an illustrated glossary for reference.
6. Shows detailed information on things such as how to can foods, shell nuts, make jams and jellies, tap maples for syrup, and make fruit leather.
7. Shows where the different foods grow by listing each food in every group it fits: Wetlands, Streams/Rivers and Ponds/Lakes, Hardwood Forests, Mixed Conifer/Softwood Forests, and Agricultural Areas and Prairies
8. Shows when each food grows by listing them by what season they grow: spring, summer, fall, and winter
9. Shows fairly detailed information on the habitat and range for each species of plant.
10. Shows quite a few recipes for each food, averaging about three of four for each.
11. Shows information on how to identify, harvest, and cook the foods, unlike others that only identify them.

Reasons For Not Purchasing:

1. Shows considerably small images, many of them just 3.5 by 4 cm.
2. The book is slightly larger than most wild food books, the dimensions being 7 by 8 inches.
3. Uses about forty pages on mushrooms, most of which I wouldn't eat unless there were larger pictures to identify them with.

The grocery isn't the only place to find a good meal. "Abundantly Wild: Collecting and Cooking Wild Edibles" is a guide to those in the Midwest to finding food in their natural surroundings, and how to harvest food to cook in their own home. Filled with nearly three hundred recipes using sixty-five different fruits and vegetables one can find naturally growing, "Abundantly Wild" also has chapters on the benefits of eating naturally growing foods and how processed foods can do more harm than good. A true do-it-yourself cooking guide, "Abundantly Wild" is a strong consideration for any concerned with health and budget.

If you are a new or seasoned forager, this book will prove to be insightful and informational. I simply can not get along without this book and carry it with me everywhere I go. Have recommended this to many friends, all who share my sentiments. Teresa Marrone is absolutely THE authority on wild berries and fruits. Her recipes are easy to follow and yield delicious results every time.

Of all the wild food cookbooks I own (more than twenty,) this is the best by far. The recipes are excellent, and the foraging information given for each food is excellent, too, in accuracy if not extent (as a forager, I can tell you that NO single book can provide all the information any forager requires; numerous books, and preferably experienced foragers themselves, need to be consulted by anyone wanting to learn foraging!)