Decent "Wild Foods" fieldbook

[spoony]

roger phillips does do some very good plant id books
mushrooms
trees in britain
wild flowers of britain, to name a few all very good id books

 

[xylaria]

What I have done is take a good field guide and then with cross referancing wild food books come up with a key which I write in the field guide. For example when a plant is looked up the guide there would be a small saucepan for edible when cooked, and leaf for salad herbs. I have also marked poisonous plants down as well.

Generally books with writing in the margin are an abomination, but until I can get hold a guide(and they do exist) that contains all the infomation that I need I am stuck with doing this.

Ediblity is always in opinion of the author. One of the problems with plants and to some extent fungi is that how edible something is has alot do with how it is prepared. I am really horrified at some of the ediblity advise that turns up in some fungi guides. Like forgetting to mention Galerina marginata + autmnalis are deadly poisonous and look like kuehneromyces.

 

[Mikey P]

Well all - the book's now gone - sorry to any more takers.

I am sorry but I still stand by my word when it comes to "Wild Food". For what I need it for (i.e. ID'ing a plant and seeing if it's edible) it does not serve it's purpose. For cooking wild food together with commercially available produce, I am sure it is good.

I shall try and get a generic tree/plan guide for the UK in a pocket size then and cross reference it to the "Food for free" book - any recommendations?

Thanks - and sorry to all those "Wild Food" readers out there who I have enraged

Agile

I found the Collins 'Wild Flowers' book to be really useful for getting a proper ID of the stuff mentioned in 'Food For Free'. It's not the 'Gem' edition, but is still small enough to carry.

 

[gunnix]

I would like to have just a text book about edible, medicinal foods with perhaps very small drawings to keep it thin (small books packed with information is what I like to carry); names ofcourse written in latin as well. And that combined with several decent field ID guides (mushrooms seperate, plants, insects, animals:fish,birds,mammals..). I think that'd be great, but I guess I need to work it out on my own

I got a great mushroom id book (it's dutch , my language "De grote paddestoelengids voor onderweg" Tirion) which also says if it's edible, or which effects you get (psychotic for example ). It's all very very short but you get all the needed information, this way the book has about all mushrooms (about 1300) in it, with good id info (and it says which mushrooms look a like, very important) and info about edibility and it's still possible to put it in your trousers pocket! I'd like to see some more guides like it, about plants, animals....