Do any of you have recommendations for books on foraging and harvesting
wild foods? There are many available. I don't know where to start and
am on a very tight budget.

I hope this is not off topic, and if so, could you please direct me to
the proper group(s)?

Thank you.

Jimmy Adams

James Adams wrote:
Do any of you have recommendations for books on foraging and harvesting
wild foods? There are many available. I don't know where to start and
am on a very tight budget.

I hope this is not off topic, and if so, could you please direct me to
the proper group(s)?

Thank you.

Jimmy Adams


Look for Euell Gibbons, "Stalking the Wild Asparagus". Good advice and
it's a good read.

Frank

In article ,
Frank frankdotlogullo@comcastperiodnet wrote:

James Adams wrote:
Do any of you have recommendations for books on foraging and harvesting
wild foods? There are many available. I don't know where to start and
am on a very tight budget.

I hope this is not off topic, and if so, could you please direct me to
the proper group(s)?

Thank you.

Jimmy Adams


Look for Euell Gibbons, "Stalking the Wild Asparagus". Good advice and
it's a good read.

Frank

I agree. May be books at your local library.


http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_b?...ipbooks&field-
keywords=euell+gibbons&x=10&y=18

Bill

--
Garden in shade zone 5 S Jersey USA

In article ,
James Adams wrote:

Do any of you have recommendations for books on foraging and harvesting
wild foods? There are many available. I don't know where to start and
am on a very tight budget.

I hope this is not off topic, and if so, could you please direct me to
the proper group(s)?

Thank you.

Jimmy Adams

The Revolution will not be Microwaved
by Sandor Ellix Katz
http://www.amazon.com/Revolution-Wil...round/dp/19333
92118/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1218128128&sr= 1-1

From road kill gourmets to bread club members, the people you encounter
while reading Katz?s book have rejected the mass industrial food complex
that dominates North American food choices. Katz introduces us to people
who know there are choices and who are willing to act upon that
knowledge.

The book is an exhibition of choices and each chapter has a list
of resources. Check your local library.
--

Billy
Bush and Pelosi Behind Bars
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9KVTf...ef=patrick.net
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l0aEo...eature=related

On Thu, 07 Aug 2008 11:07:55 -0500, James Adams wrote:

Do any of you have recommendations for books on foraging and harvesting
wild foods? There are many available. I don't know where to start and
am on a very tight budget.

I hope this is not off topic, and if so, could you please direct me to
the proper group(s)?

Thank you.

Jimmy Adams

Hit the library and get the classic "Stalking the Wild Asparagus" by
Euell Gibbons.

Boron

In article , Frank
frankdotlogullo@comcastperiodnet wrote:

James Adams wrote:
Do any of you have recommendations for books on foraging and harvesting
wild foods? There are many available. I don't know where to start and
am on a very tight budget.

I hope this is not off topic, and if so, could you please direct me to
the proper group(s)?

Thank you.

Jimmy Adams


Look for Euell Gibbons, "Stalking the Wild Asparagus". Good advice and
it's a good read.

Frank

Euell tasted like wild hickery nuts.

-paghat the ratgirl
--
visit my temperate gardening website:
http://www.paghat.com
visit my film reviews website:
http://www.weirdwildrealm.com

In article , Boron Elgar
wrote:

On Thu, 07 Aug 2008 11:07:55 -0500, James Adams wrote:

Do any of you have recommendations for books on foraging and harvesting
wild foods? There are many available. I don't know where to start and
am on a very tight budget.

I hope this is not off topic, and if so, could you please direct me to
the proper group(s)?

Thank you.

Jimmy Adams

Hit the library and get the classic "Stalking the Wild Asparagus" by
Euell Gibbons.

Boron

He also wrote STALKING THE HEALTHFUL HERBS and STALKING THE BLUE-EYED
SCALLOP. Euell's writings on this topic are fun breezy writings as he's
quite the story teller. But he takes such little account of regional
differences in species and harvest periods that he's useless as a
PRACTICAL guide if you live outside his range of expertise. Little applies
to the Pacific Northwest where I live; much more useful in the American
southwest or California which he knew best. He lived briefly here in
Washington, but the books just rarely take this area into account.

A lot of cool information can be found in the WIILD FOOD ADVENTURER
NEWSLETTER and if you're crazy for the topic a hundred dollars will get
all the back issues, focus on North American gathering from the wild.
Start he
http://www.wildfoodadventures.com

I used to do a LOT of gathering and discovered it could even be done inner
city. Nowadays with so much development there are not so many empty lots,
but 10 to 20 years ago in any given few blocks of a major city (in my
case, Seattle) would find abandoned fruit trees on lots where houses
disappeared; various berries and roots on lots that were never developed;
and even abandoned gardens where the hardiest edibles, like fennel celery
for example, were rampant.

There are also many fruits that few people harvest but if you're into
canning, great stuff, including around here cotoneaster berries, crab
apples, elderberry, mountain ash berries, and hawthorne berries, among
others, many of these to be harvested after first frost for maximum
sweetness of bitter berries but they can also be picked earlier and
"frosted off" in the freezer. These sorts of berries have to be cooked,
sieved, and sweetened (can be sweetened with apple juice, pears, or just
with sweeter berries mixed in, no need for processed sugar). There's
little competition for these & they make superb jellies and syrups and can
be gathered by the bucketload usually quite close to home.

One summer I got it in my head I wanted to make my own herbal teas and I
gathered leaves from various wild berry bushes, dried them, all very tidy
and attractive with each leaf variety kept separate. Made okay tea but
they all tasted exactly a like, so silly I kept them separate and labeled.
I never again focused a lot of attention on berry leaf teas but if you go
gathering and just can't find much you can always come home with berry
leaves to dry, and dandylion leaves as a rich spinach. Early this year I
gathered a lot of dandylion flower-buds to stir-fry.

In many parts of the States, there are mushroom clubs, or Mycological
Societies, and one of their main thangs is orchestrating field trips for
novice shroom collectors. It's a great way to not only learn for sure
what's safe, but to learn the best hunting weeks. Our local group is the
Puget Sound Mycological Society. Try MykoWeb.com to see what's close to
your region.

I've never found a decent guide to my region's food gathering and the best
information has come from native plant society members or my own trial and
error. If not for a native plants fanatic I wouldn't've known I could
harvest salmonberry sprouts in spring, the salmonberries are SO numerous
within a block of my house, and it's hard to get a lot of the berries
because they fruit thinly and fall the stems quickly. But it's quick and
easy to fill a little bucket with sprouts to peal and use in sundry
vegetable dishes, or even raw, taste like extra sweet celery.

There's a wild blueberry that grows all over Kitsap county and can be the
dominant shrub in clear-cuts. Locally they're called "prairie berries"
though there's no prairie here, but they do like big cleared areas. I've
tried to transplant them into my yard but so far haven't got one to
"take," as they hate being transplanted. But in the clear-cut areas a
short drive away, the fruits can be THICK on the one to two foot tall
shrubs. Given the price of blueberries, these are really worth gathering.
Evergreen huckleberries are also ultra-common everywhere in Kitsap, the
fruits only half the size of the prairie berries, but by looking around a
bit can usually find bushes with huckleberries twice the size of the
majority, easier to fill a bucket. The deciduous red huckleberries are
always smaller though, harder to gather a substantial number. Most people
don't realize the salal berries are edible if cooked, sieved, sweetened;
another harvest for which there seems to be no competition and a big
bucket quickly filled.

Locally many people think the red elderberries are poisonous (they might
be while they're green) so no competition for those either, except from
deer and bears. The invasive blackberries, well, of course, they're big,
sweet, and impossible to ignore.

I do less canning than formerly but I'll put free gathered berries in
airtight smallish ziplock bags stacked up in the freezer, then whizz them
up a portion at a time with ice, add maybe a banana or some yogurt (this
month, with watermelon), makes incredible freezy-drinks. So even without
canning, you can't gather too much.

Formerly I gathered such things not just for fun but from poverty and
found myself eating damned well without cash. Now it's more for fun only,
but with recent increases in the price of groceries, I found myself even
harvesting our garden's tiny service berries (last month) though for an
hour's picking I probably got only two mixed fruit drinks out of it. Oh!
Oh! I have to go and make a freezy-drink right now! Rasberries and
cantaloupe await me.

-paghat the ratgirl
--
visit my temperate gardening website:
http://www.paghat.com
visit my film reviews website:
http://www.weirdwildrealm.com

On Thu, 07 Aug 2008 11:07:55 -0500, James Adams
wrote:

Do any of you have recommendations for books on foraging and harvesting
wild foods? There are many available. I don't know where to start and
am on a very tight budget.

I hope this is not off topic, and if so, could you please direct me to
the proper group(s)?

Thank you.

Jimmy Adams

You really should visit the library first if you are on that
tight of a budget. Make sure these books are what you really
want. I just used Amazon for display purposes. Buy from
whoever you are comfortable with.

Field Guides:

A Field Guide to Edible Wild Plants: Eastern and central
North America (Peterson Field Guides) by Lee Allen Peterson.

Uses drawings, excellent reference for identifying plants.
Only brief preparation info.

http://www.amazon.com/Field-Guide-Ed.../dp/039592622X
===
Edible Wild Plants: A North American Field Guide (Paperback)
by Thomas Elias and Peter Dykeman.

Uses real photos and is pretty good. My next favorite guide
after Peterson's.

http://www.amazon.com/Edible-Wild-Pl.../dp/0806974885
===
Edible Wild Plants of Eastern North America by Merritt
Lyndon Fernald and Alfred Charles Kinsey. Revised by Reed C.
Rollings.

Uses black & white drawings and B/W photos. This is an older
reference but covers a lot of ground.

http://www.amazon.com/Edible-Plants-.../dp/0486291049
===
Read the Amazon reviews too.

Euell Gibbons stuff is good (as others have mentioned), but
take care with him. He liked to do some crazy stuff like eat
poison ivy (tiny amounts) to develop an immunity to it
(shudder). He wrote several good books on wild edibles
though, more than just "Stalking the Wild Asparagus".

I have more, but these are by faves. Only dig into the other
ones when I can't find what I want in the above and/or want
to know as much as possible about something. One can never
have too many books on stuff

What ever you do be careful. Make sure several references
agree on what you are going to try eating. Some of them
have/give really bad suggestions that I don't think would be
wise to try.

--
Leon Fisk
Grand Rapids MI/Zone 5b
Remove no.spam for email

On Thu, 07 Aug 2008 11:52:00 -0700,
(paghat) wrote:

In article , Boron Elgar
wrote:

On Thu, 07 Aug 2008 11:07:55 -0500, James Adams wrote:

Do any of you have recommendations for books on foraging and harvesting
wild foods? There are many available. I don't know where to start and
am on a very tight budget.

I hope this is not off topic, and if so, could you please direct me to
the proper group(s)?

Thank you.

Jimmy Adams

Hit the library and get the classic "Stalking the Wild Asparagus" by
Euell Gibbons.

Boron

He also wrote STALKING THE HEALTHFUL HERBS and STALKING THE BLUE-EYED
SCALLOP. Euell's writings on this topic are fun breezy writings as he's
quite the story teller. But he takes such little account of regional
differences in species and harvest periods that he's useless as a
PRACTICAL guide if you live outside his range of expertise. Little applies
to the Pacific Northwest where I live; much more useful in the American
southwest or California which he knew best. He lived briefly here in
Washington, but the books just rarely take this area into account.

A lot of cool information can be found in the WIILD FOOD ADVENTURER
NEWSLETTER and if you're crazy for the topic a hundred dollars will get
all the back issues, focus on North American gathering from the wild.
Start he
http://www.wildfoodadventures.com

And he

http://wildfoodplants.com/


I used to do a LOT of gathering and discovered it could even be done inner
city

And lots of fun here. too....in case you want to gather goodies in
Manhattan.

http://www.wildmanstevebrill.com/
..

Nowadays with so much development there are not so many empty lots,
but 10 to 20 years ago in any given few blocks of a major city (in my
case, Seattle) would find abandoned fruit trees on lots where houses
disappeared; various berries and roots on lots that were never developed;
and even abandoned gardens where the hardiest edibles, like fennel celery
for example, were rampant.

There are also many fruits that few people harvest but if you're into
canning, great stuff, including around here cotoneaster berries, crab
apples, elderberry, mountain ash berries, and hawthorne berries, among
others, many of these to be harvested after first frost for maximum
sweetness of bitter berries but they can also be picked earlier and
"frosted off" in the freezer. These sorts of berries have to be cooked,
sieved, and sweetened (can be sweetened with apple juice, pears, or just
with sweeter berries mixed in, no need for processed sugar). There's
little competition for these & they make superb jellies and syrups and can
be gathered by the bucketload usually quite close to home.

My hesitation in such gathering these days is that one does not know
what has been on the property. Up until the late 60s, early 70s,
farmers north of me, or anyone with an empty lot, could legally allow
dumpers on their property. A beekeeper friend warned me about some
places in the area that I'd never have known about otherwise.

And I'd never take anything near a roadside. But that's me.

snip delightful stories, advice and information.

Boron

In article ,
Boron Elgar wrote:

And I'd never take anything near a roadside. But that's me.

snip delightful stories, advice and information.

Boron

Heavy metal contamination like lead.

Me too and I see joggers running along the highway and think the same.

Paranoid Bill who is trying to remember the last gas additive that hurt
the water table.

--
Garden in shade zone 5 S Jersey USA

On Thu, 07 Aug 2008 15:53:51 -0400, Bill
wrote:

In article ,
Boron Elgar wrote:

And I'd never take anything near a roadside. But that's me.

snip delightful stories, advice and information.

Boron

Heavy metal contamination like lead.

And bits of asbestos that are still in some brakes, among other
contaminants.

Me too and I see joggers running along the highway and think the same.

Fer sure. Who'd want wild foods contaminated with jogger?

Paranoid Bill who is trying to remember the last gas additive that hurt
the water table.

--
Garden in shade zone 5 S Jersey USA

Not too different up here in northern NJ...I do get great sun on the
deck, though.

Boron

"James Adams" wrote in message
news
Do any of you have recommendations for books on foraging and harvesting
wild foods? There are many available. I don't know where to start and
am on a very tight budget.

I hope this is not off topic, and if so, could you please direct me to
the proper group(s)?

Thank you.

Jimmy Adams

Common sense tells me that its important what area of the world, forest,
desert, and so forth is important regarding an answer.
--
Dave

In article ,
Boron Elgar wrote:

And bits of asbestos that are still in some brakes, among other
contaminants.

The smaller the asbestos bits are, the more deadly they are.
--

Billy
Bush and Pelosi Behind Bars
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9KVTf...ef=patrick.net
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l0aEo...eature=related

In article
,
Billy wrote:

In article ,
Boron Elgar wrote:

And bits of asbestos that are still in some brakes, among other
contaminants.

The smaller the asbestos bits are, the more deadly they are.

If my memory serves me well the magic size is 0.6 microns. This size
enables cellular penetration. Same holds true for wood dust. Size
matters. Don¹t ask for a cite.

But not in all things who has the bigger penis Humans or Gorillas?

Bill

--
Garden in shade zone 5 S Jersey USA

In article
, Bill
wrote:

But not in all things who has the bigger penis Humans or Gorillas?

Bill

Don't forget fleas.

-paggers
--
visit my temperate gardening website:
http://www.paghat.com
visit my film reviews website:
http://www.weirdwildrealm.com