Edible Wild Plants: Wild Foods From Dirt To Plate (The Wild Food Adventure Series, Book 1) [Paperback]

John Kallas (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 11, 2010

"Wild spinach about 7 feet tall and fully mature. Well-fed wild spinach is well-branched and produces a huge quantity of seeds when mature. The leaves are still edible at this stage but are reduced in quality, taking on a somewhat off-flavor. According to research on other mature plants, the leaves on these older plants retain most of their nutrients and phytochemicals as long as they are still green." (Left: The author stands in for perspective, 2006.)

Imagine what you could do with eighteen delicious new greens in your dining arsenal including purslane, chickweed, curly dock, wild spinach, sorrel, and wild mustard.

John Kallas makes it fun and easy to learn about foods you've unknowingly passed by all your life. Through gorgeous photographs, playful, but authoritative text, and ground-breaking design he gives you the knowledge and confidence to finally begin eating and enjoying edible wild plants.

Edible Wild Plants divides plants into four flavor categories -- foundation, tart, pungent, and bitter. Categorizing by flavor helps readers use these greens in pleasing and predictable ways. According to the author, combining elements from these different categories makes the best salads.

This field guide is essential for anyone wanting to incorporate more natural and whole foods into their diet. First ever nutrient tables that directly compare wild foods to domesticated greens are included. Whether looking to enhance a diet or identify which plants can be eaten for survival, the extensive information on wild foods will help readers determine the appropriate stage of growth and how to properly prepare these highly nutritious greens.

John Kallas is one of the foremost authorities on North American edible wild plants and other foragables. He's learned about wild foods through formal academic training and over 35 years of hands-on field research. John has a doctorate in nutrition, a master's in education, and degrees in biology and zoology.

He's a trained botanist, nature photgrapher, writer, researched, and teacher. In 1993 he founded the Institute for the Study of Edible Wild Plants and Other Foragables along with its educational branch, Wild Food Adventures.

John's company is based in Portland, Oregon, where he offers regional workshops, and multi-day intensives on wild foods.

For more information, see www.wildfoodadventures.com

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

Edible Wild Plants provides what you really need to know to have your own wild food adventures. Whether a beginner or advanced wild food aficionado, gardener, chef, botanist, nutritionist, scientist, or a dieter with special needs, this book is for you. Author John Kallas gives you unprecedented details, maps, simple explanations, and multiple close-up photographs of every plant covered at every important stage of growth. You learn that a plant is not only edible but when, why, and how it is. He can turn you into a successful, well-fed, and happy forager anywhere in North America.

For more information on this book, other publications by John Kallas, and wild foods in general, see www.wildfoodadventures.com

About the Author

Dr. John Kallas has investigated and taught about edible wild plants since 1970. He founded Wild Food Adventures (www.wildfoodadventures.com) in 1993 and is the publisher and editor of Wild Food Adventurer. He lives in Portland, Oregon.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 416 pages
• Publisher: Gibbs Smith (June 11, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1423601505
• ISBN-13: 978-1423601500
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.3 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (58 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,374 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #5 in Books > Professional & Technical > Professional Science > Biological Sciences > Plants
  • #6 in Books > Cookbooks, Food & Wine > Vegetables & Vegetarian > Vegetables
  • #12 in Books > Cookbooks, Food & Wine > Natural Foods

More About the Author

John Kallas is one of the foremost authorities on North American edible wild plants and other foragables -- almost all of which are native to North America, or naturalized here from European origins. He's learned about wild foods through formal academic training and over 35 years of hands-on field research. John has a doctorate in nutrition, a master's in education, and degrees in biology and zoology. He's a trained botanist, nature photographer, writer, researcher, and teacher. He's taught thousands of people about wild foods, given hundreds of wild food presentations to a wide variety of groups, assembled a comprehensive wild food library, and documented hundreds of wild foods in photographs and notes. Between newsletters, magazines, academic periodicals, and the Internet, John has published over 100 articles on edible wild plants. In 1993, he founded the Institute for the Study of Edible Wild Plants and Other Foragables along with its educational branch, Wild Food Adventures. John's company is based in Portland, Oregon, where he offers regional workshops, and multi-day intensives on wild foods. John travels the rest of North America conducting field research, training special groups and organizations, and speaks at conferences and universities. Dr. Kallas begins the first of the Wild Food Adventure series of books with "Edible Wild Plants: Wild Foods from Dirt to Plate." The series is designed to provide readers with in-depth practical information they cannot get anywhere else. Books in the series are designed to be substantial in content, authoritative, easy to use, cleverly written, and fun to read. Rich with photographs, they will give the reader the tools to be successful early and often at identifying, gathering, and dining on the plants covered.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

73 of 73 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars 5 Reasons To Love This Book, May 19, 2010

By 

Shoshanna Cogan (New York) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Edible Wild Plants: Wild Foods From Dirt To Plate (The Wild Food Adventure Series, Book 1) (Paperback)

1. This beautiful, glossy book has the sharpest edible wild plant photos available. If you didn't recognize these plants before, you will now.
2. The detailed plant guides describing "common weeds" are, without being a bit boring, fun to read and thorough.
3. The wild plant recipes have been tested and refined. Speaking from experience, the recipe results yield some very yummy surprises for kids and adults. Who knew purslane, mallow, and wood sorrel could taste so good?
4. Whether you're a wild food gourmand or just an occasional weed-nibbler like me, Kallas' writing style is both entertaining and enlightening.
5. This book could change the way the world eats (at least the way we eat in the USA) and that's why I bought multiple copies for our public library, school teachers, and fellow nature-lovers.

46 of 46 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars For the identification of wild edible plants- a must have book!, July 10, 2010

By 

NewlyAwakened - See all my reviews

This review is from: Edible Wild Plants: Wild Foods From Dirt To Plate (The Wild Food Adventure Series, Book 1) (Paperback)

My Dad recently gifted me this great book and it is one of the best that I have ever received! You can help the author even more by going to his site directly to see and purchase this book there: [...]. It is the first book in a series that this foraging expert plans to write. This first book focuses on the most readily available greens. I think it is perfect for both the city and country dweller as you will quickly learn to see the wild foods readily available all around you.

The author focuses on the best parts of the plants to use, and even recipes. I think he took the time to do so as most people are put off on harvesting "weeds," let alone when they actually try one (think dandelion leaves), they think, "Yuck, this stuff tastes awful." This is not a pocket field guide for the quick identification of a plant, but rather more of an in-depth look at the plant, look alikes, and the best ways to utilize said plant. That being said, it is not tedious to find the plant or information you are looking for and I have already been able to quickly flip back and forth through it and find exactly what I am after in an instant.

The chapter on the Mallow plant alone should be enough to get most people out in their yards hunting and pecking for a wonderful Nature provided treat. Recipes for this plant include: various "mumbo" gumbo recipes, Mallow confections using Mallow whites for items like whipped cream, meringues, and "Mallowmallows." Yes, the Mallow plant is a cousin to the Marsh Mallow plant!

The cover and paper used in the book are high gloss and will hold up to years of thumbing through, even from going in and out of a backpack on a "less than ideal weather condition" trip. The photography is excellent and I believe was shot by the author as well. It has the DK/Eyewitness books feel to it which I just love! I think his goal is for people to really "learn the plant" so you will recognize it anywhere.

I live in a more rural locale now, but I remember seeing several of the plants in this book in my yard from when I lived in the city. Where I live now, I was able to walk out my back door and find 3 of the edibles from the book within 10 minutes! I discovered that the weed taking up 80% of my garden is in fact actually lambsquarters, the very first plant in this book and one that the author would like to be renamed Wild Spinach. I have since found ample Common Mallow, Purslane, and Chickweed plants as well growing right in my garden and all are edible which I now know thanks to this wonderful guide.

NewlyAwakened
Rural Homestead Group Owner [...]

37 of 37 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars finally a really, really clear and informative edible wild plants book!, November 8, 2010

By 

pen name26 - See all my reviews

This review is from: Edible Wild Plants: Wild Foods From Dirt To Plate (The Wild Food Adventure Series, Book 1) (Paperback)

At our monster-big local bookstore, I looked through all the books on edible wild plants, and this one was by FAR the best! Rather than line drawings of hundreds of plants from all over, this book covers a more limited number of *readily available* wild edibles.

As a result, the info and photos of each plant is MUCH more detailed, including various ways it can be cooked (also with photos), the plant's life cycle and various edible/non-edible parts, photos of any similar NON-edible plants, etc.

I was interested in wild greens, and this book had a great discussion of not only how to decrease bitterness in the cooking process, but also which greens are less bitter, and what times of year are best for trying the more bitter ones. As a total novice, I'd been thinking of trying some dandelion greens, and was saved from getting overwhelmed and discouraged in that first experiment, and steered to some *much* better options. Since then I timed a dandelion-picking better according to the book's suggestions, and they were wonderful! (also, the author had some great thoughts about 'bitterness' in wild greens that have stayed with me since)

Since then, it seems like everywhere I look there are great edible greens growing in yards and wild spaces. This has been a wonderful addition to eating veggies from my garden. There's something so full of life about wild foods, grown right where *you* live and grow -- it's local, organic food taken to a whole new level.