Field Guide to Edible Wild Plants [Paperback]

Bradford Angier (Author), David K. Foster (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 10, 2008

This illustrated guide to North American wild edibles has been a nature classic for over thirty years. In this new edition, David K. Foster revises Bradford Angier's invaluable foraging handbook, updating the taxonomy and adding more than a dozen species. Scientific information for a general audience and full-color illustrations combine with intriguing accounts of the plants' uses, making this a practical guide for modern-day foragers.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Bradford Angier is the author of numerous best-selling books on nature and outdoor living, including Field Guide to Medicinal Wild Plants (9780811720762), Wilderness Shelters and How to Build Them (9781585744305), and Looking for Gold (9780811720342). David K. Foster is associate professor of biology and environmental science at Messiah College in Pennsylvania and a member of the Society of American Foresters.

Product Details

• Paperback: 285 pages
• Publisher: Stackpole Books; 2nd edition (May 10, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0811734471
• ISBN-13: 978-0811734479
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.6 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #308,984 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Bradford Angier (1910 - 1997) was a wilderness survivalist and the author of numerous best-selling books on nature, survival, and living off the land.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

29 of 29 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great book if you already know some plants..., January 26, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Field Guide to Edible Wild Plants (Paperback)

And still ok if you're clueless. The book's small size, a convenience in the field, limits the amount of illustrations it can contain. For example, the entire gooseberry/currant family is represented by three pictures, all fitting on one page. The text, on the other hand, can't be matched. My suggestion would be to pair this book with a field guide to wild plants until you can recognise them by sight.

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Well-packaged but inaccurate, June 2, 2008

By 

Sam Thayer - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Field Guide to Edible Wild Plants (Paperback)

I have long owned the earlier edition and excitedly bought this new one. This book is a good idea but poorly executed. (Let me say right away that I am the author of an edible plant book, so you can accuse me of bashing the competition if you want.) The older edition was one of the books that helped get me interested in this topic, and it is sentimental to me, so I keep trying to like this book but find it difficult.

While it does contain a lot of good information and covers an excellent selection of species, it is also full of inaccuracies - and how can a reader know what to trust? Out of the dozens of edible plant books I have, this is one of the least accurate and I believe is based on comparatively little first-hand experience. The misinformation and omissions are too numerous to list, but here are a few examples:

Jack-in-the-pulpit and skunk cabbage cannot be simply dried to eliminate their calcium oxalate. Believing this would be potentially dangerous, and painful at best. They require prolonged extreme dessication under hot conditions (I have some of both kinds that have been drying for 8 years and still have calcium oxalate a-plenty), or prolonged baking (days or weeks). Also, the book does not even mention that eastern and western skunk cabbage are completely different plants, nor does it specify which one it is talking about. The documentation of their food uses differs.

The drawing of arrowhead tubers looks so dramatically unlike the real thing that you would never know if you found them. The jerusalem artichoke tubers depicted are a cultivated form, which looks and tastes quite different from the typical wild type.

This book is not very good for identification and doesn't even use the scientific names of the plants. The preparation sections are typically 1-3 sentences - not much at all. Much of the text seems like space filler, although it is a good read.

All of the info in this book is easy to find in other books - the author doesn't seem to contribute anything to this field. If you have this book, keep it and refer to it. If you are considering getting into foraging, don't make it a priority. Depending on your location, check out Edible Wild Plants of the Prairie, Steve Brill's wild food book, Abundantly Wild (Midwest), The Euell Gibbons books, or Nancy Turner's books for the Pacific NW. These are all much better. Get a tree, shrub, and wildflower guide to your specific region for ID.

16 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A little knowledge can be dangerous..., August 1, 2002

By 

cassandra mccann (Philadelphia, PA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Field Guide to Edible Wild Plants (Paperback)

This book is very interesting with nice pictures but should not be used as a primary source in the field. In my opinion, it gives a false sense of security by failing to mention poisonous plants that appear similar to those highlighted. Also, it does not pay particular attention to precise plant identification and therefore should not be used for this purpose. Overall, I have enjoyed this book immensely, but would recommend it with caution.