Book Reviews
The purpose of this page is to help readers decide which other references to get in their wild-food education. Of course, the reviews are subjective. However, I have looked at several criteria in coming to my ratings for each book. These are:
- Writing quality
- Information accuracy
- Originality
- Thoroughness and usefulness
- Quality of images
- Organization
Conformity to the wild food writing standards listed below:
- The information should, to the extent possible, reflect the author’s personal experiences rather than be copied from other sources.
- The source should be cited for information or opinions not derived from or verified by the author’s first-hand experience.
- The author should make a reasonable effort to let readers know his or her level of experience with a plant, and not to exaggerate it.
- A plant should not be condemned or written off by those with little experience with it, or who have not legitimately researched it.
- Plant identification and photo captions should be accurate and should refer to scientific names.
The books are rated on a scale of five stars. Note that, while I have judged identification guides by the quality and accuracy of their images and descriptions, no wild food books are penalized just because they aren’t identification guides; they are simply judged by their other criteria. While it is great when our wild food guides can be used to confirm our identification of plants, any person interested in foraging is kidding him/her self to think that it is possible to be proficient at plant identification without several guides intended specifically for that purpose (i.e., NOT WILD FOOD books), and without investing a significant amount of time into learning botany and plant ecology. However, due to the interest in using wild food books for identification, each one is given a separate ID rating of one through five, on how useful I feel the book is for that purpose.
The books reviewed are divided into several categories:
