Books for edible plants in South France

[OldFingersGreen]

Hi there!

My partner and I are taking a little time to travel around France working here and there and generally doing the back to nature thing wherever we can. So far it's absolutely fantastic, being able to go foraging and return with baskets full of amazing edibles for barely any effort is wonderful! I have buckets and buckets of chestnuts and two batches of windfall cider on the go and there's foot wide parasol mushrooms frying on the fire as I type! Unfortunately we are quite limited by our knowledge which was all learnt in England. I've been trying to find a good source for edible/medicinal plant identification for South Western Europe but have come up with squat.. I found some amazingly good looking books in French my understanding is nowhere near good enough!

Anybody know of any books in English that might suit??

Thanking you kindly!

 

[Fraxinus]

I have a book on Medicinal plants of Greece and all of the plants in it are also in the UK. It is a very small book translated into English, not many specialist books for a region get translated into other languages from my experience and trying to translate one yourself, even with a good dictionary, is nigh on impossible.

The varieties of wild edibles that you may come across that are different to the UK are Globe Artichokes, lemon and olive trees.
Green lemons fresh off the tree are great squeezed on fried eggs and olives need some prep to make them good to eat, straight off a tree they are very bitter.
Prickly Pear Cactus I have found along the Med coast too, not sure how far inland they go in France though.
Apart from those mentioned above I stick to what I recognise from the UK.

Sorry i can't point out a book that may suit you.

Rob.

 

[oldtimer]

Like Fraxinus I rely on English books in Pyrenees Oriental, but I listen and watch my French friends when they forage. Wild asparagus is my favourite and a friend shared her favourite foraging place. We do have prickly pears but I suspect they are feral as they are mostly found near derelict buildings- I got badly needled at my first encounter and left them alone for years until my younger son taught me the trick of kicking them along the ground until the spines broke off. So glad I taught him the rewards of foraging when he was a child!
We also have plenty of olives- just don't try eating unripe ones off the tree like I did. It took nearly the whole day to get rid of the taste.