Sam Thayer's Field Guide To Edible Wild Plants - Samuel Thayer

This brand new book is the most comprehensive edible plant guide we’ve ever seen– a veritable encyclopedia of knowledge from the respected foraging expert, Samuel Thayer. It was recommended to us by local forager Rachel Alexandrou as complimentary reading material for her Foraging Walk and Edible Tasting at The Naturalist’s Notebook this summer, and it has since become a contender as our favorite resource for identification and uses of edible plants.

The book begins with a key, a tool that will help you identify a mystery plant by answering short questions about its appearance. Once you’re in the correct group, sub-keys will further narrow your options. Each of the over 700 edible species covered also includes a description and comparison to lookalikes, a lavish array of photographs (over 2,000 in the book), habitat information, food use including preparation tips, a range map, and other comments. Thayer’s contagious humor is interspersed for the appreciation of botany nerds. E.g., he includes Cinnamon Fern, frequently mistaken for the delectable Ostrich Fern by those who think that “wild foods are supposed to taste bad” noting that he includes the plant “mostly for their emotional benefit, yet uncertain that this benefit justifies the space.” We love the snark.

If you only invest in one foraging book, let it be this one! 

736 content-rich pages.