Customer Reviews

Food for Free

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I didn't realize, as it wasn't immediately apparent in the book summary that this is quite specific to the UK. I'd assumed that he was going to be covering temperate regions in general. This largely renders the book non-useful for anyone outside of Britain as the species covered appear fairly localized, even if they have close relatives in the US, the varieties are different enough to cause confusion if going upon the info in this book.

The biggest bummer is that I've got nobody I could give this book away to since it would cost as much to ship it to the UK as it would cost someone there to just buy it new.

No obviously this is partially my fault; I should've known that since it was a UK publisher it wouldn't be useful to me, but it would have been nice for Collins to describe it's region-specificity in the book description submitted to Amazon.

Fun and free ways of connecting with the local countryside - it worked for my kids like a dream:
Me: "Let's go for a walk!" - Kids: "Groan..."
Me: "Let's go and collect free things to eat!" Kids: "Yay!"
- and of course I taught them never to eat stuff without checking with me first - so gradually they learned to recognise plants and know where to find them and to care if their favourite hedgerow was being ripped out - a great start to caring about the planet. And this book is small enough to take with you and comprehensive enough to be useful.

I love this tiny little book!! I once was lucky enough to find a tiny book about herbs that is pocket sized and very useful, I never would have imagined I could find the same in a book for wild foods. It is really simple and easy and explains that we shouldn't be afraid to eat wild things and other tips and advice, some I like, some of it I ignore. It may not have enough information for some, but it has enough for me, it even crams in a whole bunch of recepies! I can't believe all the information could fit into it. When I first ordered it, I didn't think it would be this small, but I wasn't dissapointed, I would hate to have to carry around an unmanageble guide when out forgaing, even if it is A5 sized, this one is just perfect for me, and I hope you will ike it too. It is excellent for beginners I would think. I am only 19 so of course it is essential for me to have something to guide me, but then again, if you know a lot about wild food, you wouldn't need to bring any book out with you :)
+ it's is extremely full of pictures so you won't have much trouble finding the right plant, and it even has pictures of deadly relatives in some cases, so you don't pick a poisonous mushroom, if it really looks like the edible one..

I'll just NEVER buy a book with this ridiculous amount of information out of a poorly formatted Kindle edition. Books are not only informational, they are also beautiful. I could't see even one single species profile with pictures and recipes, so that I could have an slight idea of how the book looks. No deal.

Very good section on fungi, very good pocket sized book, I keep one in my side door in the works van, if I come across a plant it's great to refer to, even my mates ring me with requests to use it. I bought mine on Amazon for pennies, superb.

This little gem of a book should be in every backpackers back pocket. Concise, focused and descriptive you'll have no trouble identifying the plants and shellfish. There has been some comments about lack of information on animals to eat, this is probably because rabbits, pheasants and such are classed as game and will belong to the landowner. Whilst it's ok to pick a few plants, mushrooms and shellfish it will probably be frowned on if you start blasting away at the countryside or setting traps!

There seems to be a price discrepancy between the amazon uk price (£2.93) and the amazon us price ($23). How would you explain this?