Guide to Wild Foods and Useful Plants [Paperback]

Christopher Nyerges (Author), Ed Begley Jr. (Foreword)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 1, 1999

An array of abundant wild foods is available to hikers, campers, botanists or anyone interested in living closer to the earth. Written by a leading expert on wild foods and a well-known teacher of survival skills, Guide to Wild Foods and Useful Plants is more than a listing of plant types—it teaches how to recognize edible plants and where to find them, their medicinal and nutritional properties, and their growing cycles. It also includes fascinating folklore about plants, personal anecdotes about trips and meals, simple and tasty recipes, and photographs.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

Nyerges, an authority on survival skills, discusses 71 wild foods--from agave to yucca--and tells where they can be found. Some of the more familiar plants are chickweed, chicory, dandelion, fennel, grass, milkweed, nasturtium, prickly pear, thistle, and yarrow. Photographs, other illustrations, and textual descriptions of the various parts of the plants (stalks, stems, leaves, and flowers) make identification easy. In each listing, the author explains the plant's edible properties and medicinal uses, where to find it, and its growing cycle. The book also includes some plant folklore and several recipes. A few of the plants, such as poison hemlock, tree tobacco, and jimsonweed, are poisonous but have some medicinal value. There is a pictorial key to leaf shapes and one to fruits and seeds, as well as a glossary, If you're lost in the woods, the book could save your life; if you're interested in plant life and botany, the book is fascinating reading. George Cohen

About the Author

Christopher Nyerges is the codirector with his wife of the School of Self-Reliance, where he has taught classes on wild foods and survival skills since 1974. He is an associate editor of Wilderness Way and west coast editor of Wild Food Forum. He has published hundreds of articles on wild foods, gardening, self-reliance, and survival skills in American Survival Guide, Whole Life Times, Mother Earth News, Herbalist, and many other magazines. He and his wife, Dolores, live in Los Angeles. Ed Begley, Jr, is an actor and an environmental activist.

Product Details

• Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: Chicago Review Press; 1 edition (May 1, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1556523440
• ISBN-13: 978-1556523441
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.1 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #292,069 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A great companion book..., March 10, 2007

By 

Hawkeye - See all my reviews

This review is from: Guide to Wild Foods and Useful Plants (Paperback)

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. Nyerges's book is weak on its photos and plant identification but is excellent as a companion book to all those boring plant ID texts. His book provides excellent background and practical information from someone who has actually used these plants. While geared for California, many of the plants are found across the U.S. especially in the West.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Useful info but not the photos so much..., September 20, 2008

By 

Randy J. Mercurio (Morrisville, NC USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Guide to Wild Foods and Useful Plants (Paperback)

I concur with the review of Hawkeye. I will add that the book has a glossary which can be helpful at times, especially for the beginner. It also has an appendix of "Safe Families" which is unique and gives one a good place to focus your research if you are concerned about misidentification. Book is full of useful tidbits most of which are included in the "edible properties", "medicinal uses" and "other uses" category. The pictures and the plant descriptions are lacking. Apparently no one reviewed the book carefully because the author states in the introduction while speaking of being a responsible forager "We may put tobacco or mulch under the plant, or we may just breathe on it so that it can inhale our carbon monoxide." Carbon monoxide is what comes from car exhaust and carbon dioxide is what we exhale that plants use to make sugars...their food! Maybe an honest mistake but a disappointing statement when you would expect the author to have a good understanding of the inner workings of plants. I am not trying to bash the book or the author, one should look past this and I still feel that the book is useful for what it is and there are things to be learned with the information it contains.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars They're all in here!, August 17, 2009

By 

Francisco Loaiza (Pasadena, CA) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Guide to Wild Foods and Useful Plants (Paperback)

This is a great wild plant guide for use in Boy Scout outings! All of the major species are covered as well as other more common edible and poisonous plants. I highly reccomend this book as well as other Christopher Nyerges books for Boy Scouts and Boy Scout Leaders