The Forager's Harvest by Samuel Thayer

The Guide Features:

• 218 color photos, demonstrating each edible part in the proper stage of harvest, plus showing important identifying features
• Step-by-step tutorial to positive plant identification
• Photos and text comparing potentially confusing plants
• Thorough discussion on how to gather and use the plants
• Detailed information on harvest, preparation, and storage techniques
• A foraging calendar showing harvest times for wild foods
• A glossary of botanical terms illustrated with line drawings
• Bibliography and recommended reading list
• Index
• Durable, Smyth-sewn binding
• 368 6" x 9" pages

Rather than cover hundreds of plants in abbreviated accounts like the typical field guide, the author has chosen a smaller selection of species to discuss in exhaustive detail, including only those plants he has eaten fifty times or more. This book contains as many as ten high-quality color photographs of each plant. These have been painstakingly selected to facilitate identification and depict the plant parts at exactly the stage of growth in which they should be harvested. The accompanying text is accurate and thorough, giving readers of any experience level the confidence to harvest wild plants for food. Botanically, the text is accurate - yet it remains accessible to the layperson by using technical terms only when necessary.

The Forager’s Harvest has many unique features that will appeal to naturalists, hikers, campers, survivalists, homesteaders, gardeners, chefs, Native Americans, and whole-food enthusiasts. The book contains a calendar of harvest times for wild produce, a step-by-step protocol for positive identification, an illustrated glossary tailored to the needs of foragers, a recommended reading list, plus special sections on conservation, safety, nutrition, harvest techniques, preparation methods, and storage. While The Forager’s Harvest is not a regional guide, it will prove most useful to readers in the eastern US and Canada, the Rocky Mountains, and the Pacific Northwest.

Sam's books are hands down the best books available for the forager, myths busted, practical harvesting, processing, and storing techniques covered.