One summer when I was a kid, my family went to a state park to go camping. While there I was able to go on a wild edible nature hike with a guide. For me, that is by far the best way to learn and I may look into doing something like that again. Until then, the websites I linked in Three Wild Edibles That Are Good to Know are a great resource. That’s not handy when you’re actually out foraging. For that reason, books are a great resource to have on hand, of which I have a few.

Some of the books I’ll mention are for my geographical region but if you follow the link you should be able to find your region in the related subject area, or in the “What others who bought this book are buying”. A lot of the plants will overlap regions, but not all.

A Field Guide to Edible Wild Plants: Eastern and central North America (Peterson Field Guides)
This book is crammed full of information in a textbook-like manor. It lists the name of the plant, the states it can be found in as well as the type of habitat it can be found in. The time of year that it flowers or ripens is listed and common uses such as salads, cooked greens, pickled, etc., are also given. There are many poisonous plants listed. In some cases it is pointed out “use caution as the poisonous plant looks similar to another plant”, listing the resembled plants.

The pictures of the plants are drawn in black and white; they’re very well done, but still drawn. There are around 15 pages of color photos, one sided and 4-5 images per page. The lack of color photos is the only downside this book really has, but it’s a big one to me. However, there is enough great information on a huge number of plants to still make this worth buying. I give this book three stars.

A Field Guide to Medicinal Plants and Herbs: Of Eastern and Central North America (Peterson Field Guides)
This is also crammed full of a huge amount of information in a textbook-like manor. It lists the same type of information on plant name, location in the region and the habitat it can be found in.

In many cases the minerals and other nutrients are listed. The traditional method used to prepare by various cultures, such as a tea and poultice is often listed. Also listed is the ailment it is used as treatment for. Poisonous plants are listed as well, sometimes a vague warning and others a specific warning of what to avoid.
This book is loaded with pictures; most pages have at least 2-3. This book is a good one if you’re looking to add some of the medicinal properties of these plants to your diet, but don’t look to them to replace your medicine and be sure to consult your doctor.

This book’s approach is to identify medicinal plants, so there isn’t information on how to prepare the plants as food. For foraging I don’t think this is a standalone book. I do, however, highly recommend it and give it four stars.

 
Wild Berries & Fruits Field Guide of Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan
This book has the typical information you would expect; the geography is already listed to three states (there are more books available for other states). It covers the habitat it can be found in and the time of year the fruits and berries will be ripe.

There is a notes section that details interesting facts about the plants. Some of this will include medicinal uses and some list the type of animals that eat it.
There are many color pictures and a very nice in season and out of season pictures section. This is huge, as many plants look very different in the various seasons.
If you want to forage for wild fruits and berries, I highly recommend a book like this based on your geography. I give this book 4 stars.

Stalking The Wild Asparagus
This is one of the first, if not the first book on wild edibles. Where the other books offer a lot of information in a technical type manual, this book gives a lot of information but has more of a feel of coming from a grandfather on a nature hike. The author does a wonderful job explaining the plants’ history. He also spends a fair amount of time explaining different ways to prepare the plant. While there are a few drawn pictures, the books aim isn’t to teach you to identify the plant, but to know the history of it and even have an appreciation for it. Where the other books of this type might give a paragraph or two on a plant, most plants are given multiple pages in this one. The dandelion, for example, was given six pages.

There are fewer plants covered, still numbering around 45. He also covers how to cook carp, crawfish and a few other similar topics. If foraging is a passion, I highly recommend this book. I give it four stars.

Here are two books that I do not own, but are on my want list.

 

The Forager’s Harvest: A Guide to Identifying, Harvesting, and Preparing Edible Wild PlantsThis book is 368 pages with over 200 color images.

Nature’s Garden: A Guide to Identifying, Harvesting, and Preparing Edible Wild Plants

This book is 512 pages and covers 41 plants in depth with multiple color photos.

 

If you have another book on the subject, please list it in the comment section.

 

 

In Three Wild Edibles That Are Good to Know I listed three wild edibles that I think everyone should know, and I gave a bunch of resources for you to learn more about wild edibles.  In this article I am going to explain the universal edibility test.

First let me say that you should only eat wild edibles if you know for certain what they are.  But should you find yourself in a true survival situation and you must forage to survive, here are some guidelines to remember for trying wild edibles that are not known to you.

 

Taken from the FM 21-76 US ARMY SURVIVAL MANUAL (page 117-213)

EDIBILITY OF PLANTS

Plants are valuable sources of food because they are widely available, easily procured, and, in the proper combinations, can meet all your nutritional needs.

 

Absolutely identify plants before using them as food. Poison hemlock has killed people who mistook it for its relatives, wild carrots and wild parsnips.
At times you may find yourself in a situation for which you could not plan. In this instance you may not have had the chance to learn the plant life of the region in which you must survive. In this case you can use the Universal Edibility Test to determine which plants you can eat and those to avoid.
It is important to be able to recognize both cultivated and wild edible plants in a survival situation. Most of the information in this chapter is directed towards identifying wild plants because information relating to cultivated plants is more readily available.

Remember the following when collecting wild plants for food:

• Plants growing near homes and occupied buildings or along roadsides may have been sprayed with pesticides. Wash them thoroughly. In more highly developed countries with many automobiles, avoid roadside plants, if possible, due to contamination from exhaust emissions.
•  Plants growing in contaminated water or in water containing Giardia lamblia and other parasites are contaminated themselves. Boil or disinfect them.
• Some plants develop extremely dangerous fungal toxins. To lessen the chance of accidental poisoning, do not eat any fruit that is starting to spoil or showing signs of mildew or fungus.
• Plants of the same species may differ in their toxic or subtoxic compounds content because of genetic or environmental factors. One example of this is the foliage of the common chokecherry. Some chokecherry plants have high concentrations of deadly cyanide compounds while others have low concentrations or none. Horses have died from eating wilted wild cherry leaves. Avoid any weed, leaves, or seeds with an almondlike scent, a characteristic of the cyanide compounds.
• Some people are more susceptible to gastric distress (from plants) than others. If you are sensitive in this way, avoid unknown wild plants. If you are extremely sensitive to poison ivy, avoid products from this family, including any parts from sumacs, mangoes, and cashews.
• Some edible wild plants, such as acorns and water lily rhizomes, are bitter. These bitter substances, usually tannin compounds, make them unpalatable. Boiling them in several changes of water will usually remove these bitter properties.
• Many valuable wild plants have high concentrations of oxalate compounds, also known as oxalic acid. Oxalates produce a sharp burning sensation in your mouth and throat and damage the kidneys. Baking, roasting, or drying usually destroys these oxalate crystals. The corm (bulb) of the jack-in-the-pulpit is known as the “Indian turnip,” but you can eat it only after removing these crystals by slow baking or by drying.

 

Plant Identification

You identify plants, other than by memorizing particular varieties through familiarity, by using such factors as leaf shape and margin, leaf arrangements, and root structure.

The basic leaf margins (Figure 9-1) are toothed, lobed, and toothless or smooth.

These leaves may be lance-shaped, elliptical, egg-shaped, oblong, wedge-shaped,
triangular, long-pointed, or top-shaped (Figure 9-2).

The basic types of leaf arrangements (Figure 9-3) are opposite, alternate, compound,
simple, and basal rosette.

The basic types of root structures (Figure 9-4) are the bulb, clove, taproot, tuber, rhizome, corm, and crown. Bulbs are familiar to us as onions and, when sliced in half, will show concentric rings. Cloves are those bulblike structures that remind us of garlic and will separate into small pieces when broken apart. This characteristic separates wild onions from wild garlic. Taproots resemble carrots and may be single-rooted or branched, but usually only one plant stalk arises from each root. Tubers are like potatoes and dayliliesand you will find these structures either on strings or in clusters underneath the parent plants. Rhizomes are large creeping rootstock or underground stems and many plants arise from the “eyes” of these roots. Corms are similar to bulbs but are solid when cut rather than possessing rings. A crown is the type of root structure found on plants such as asparagus and looks much like a mophead under the soil’s surface.

Learn as much as possible about plants you intend to use for food and their unique
characteristics. Some plants have both edible and poisonous parts. Many are edible only at certain times of the year. Others may have poisonous relatives that look very similar to the ones you can eat or use for medicine.

Universal Edibility Test

There are many plants throughout the world. Tasting or swallowing even a small portion of some can cause severe discomfort, extreme internal disorders, and even death. Therefore, if you have the slightest doubt about a plant’s edibility, apply the Universal Edibility Test (Figure 9-5) before eating any portion of it.

Before testing a plant for edibility, make sure there are enough plants to make the testing worth your time and effort. Each part of a plant (roots, leaves, flowers, and so on) requires more than 24 hours to test. Do not waste time testing a plant that is not relatively abundant in the area.

Remember, eating large portions of plant food on an empty stomach may cause diarrhea,
nausea, or cramps. Two good examples of this are such familiar foods as green apples and wild onions. Even after testing plant food and finding it safe, eat it in moderation.

You can see from the steps and time involved in testing for edibility just how important it is to be able to identify edible plants.

To avoid potentially poisonous plants, stay away from any wild or unknown plants that
have—

• Milky or discolored sap.
•  Beans, bulbs, or seeds inside pods.
• Bitter or soapy taste.
• Spines, fine hairs, or thorns.
• Dill, carrot, parsnip, or parsleylike foliage.
• “Almond” scent in woody parts and leaves.
• Grain heads with pink, purplish, or black spurs.
• Three-leaved growth pattern.

Using the above criteria as eliminators when choosing plants for the Universal Edibility Test will cause you to avoid some edible plants. More important, these criteria will often help you avoid plants that are potentially toxic to eat or touch.

 

I was a bit spoiled as a kid, we had many different types of wild edible plants nearby and I learned to recognize many of them. It’s a skill that I have long forgotten, but still have an interest in, I just wish I had more time to devote to it. Whether hard times come and you need to depend on foraging or you just want to nibble while you hike, I think having some understanding of wild edibles and edible weeds is a good idea.

I picked these three because they’re pretty easy to find, I am sure you have all seen them but may never have looked at them as being food. You can add them to your diet now, or just make a mental note of where they are near your home. If hard times come, you can add these to make your stores stretch further.

 

Dandelion

The entire dandelion is edible; just make sure you’re picking dandelions that have not been sprayed with herbicides. The young leaves will taste better as they get bitter with age. You can still eat older leaves; just boil them first to remove the bitterness, this could take more than one session. The roots could be sautéed or roasted. The flowers can be used to make dandelion wine, used in a salad or added to a fritter.

 

Acorns

Acorns, like other nuts, are nutritious; having calories, fat and carbohydrates as well. Once harvested and boiled to remove the tannin to get the bitter taste out, they can be ground and turned into four. Acorns will fall to the ground when they are ripe, in early fall. Pick them up and discard any with holes as there is a good chance they have had worms. You can either crack them or let them sit out to dry or let them sit out to dry and then crack them. To crack them you can use a nutcracker, hammer, or even cut them in half with a knife. Boil to remove the tannin, taste test them and if they are still bitter, boil them again. If they are not bitter, separate the acorn meal from the water. You can use the acorn meal as flour.

 

Cattail

Cattails seem to grow where ever there is any standing water. Did you know that they are often called “nature’s supermarket”? Almost every part of the cattail can be eaten at different parts of the year.

In the spring the shoots can be eaten raw or added in stir-fry. Cattail hearts mature in mid spring and can be used similarly to the shoots. Cattail pollen can be used instead of cornstarch as a thickener or can be added to breads for taste. The Rhizome or root can be harvested between late fall and early spring. Cattails store starch in the roots in the colder months and can be turned into flour, similar to acorns.

As I mentioned I just don’t have the time to devote to knowing wild edibles as much as I would like. But have gathered a decent list of resources on the subject, for when I do have more time. Here are the resources I have that you can use if you would like to learn more on the subject.

I’ll review some of the books I have on this subject on Thursday.  Here are some of the other resources that I have collected:

  

Websites:
Eat The Weeds
Hunt Gather, Grow, Eat; forage section
Northern Bushcraft: Wild Edible Plants of the Pacific Northwest
ForagingPictures.com
Outdoor Edibles
Wildman Steve Brill
Wild Crafting: Forage for Free Food

If you have any other websites please add them in the comments, save the books for Thursday please.