The Forager Handbook: A Guide to the Edible Plants of Britain

I have been foraging for a couple of years now and after having made good use of the book 'Food for Free' I really wanted to find a detailed and extensive guide to ALL of Britain's wild edibles, to get a solid understanding of the hundreds of different plants that grow freely just waiting to be eaten. In my eyes, The Forager Handbook is that guide.I should state that this is no field guide, nor do I think it should be considered a novices book. This is for those who really wish to become knowledgeable about the subject. When I first got the book and started flicking through it, it was obvious that a lot of effort and research had gone into it. Page after page of information on all the different plants, good descriptions, any potential hazards, similar species and ways to use them, it's all there. I saw some people saying they weren't too impressed by the black and white images but to be honest the photos are of such good quality (the vast majority of them anyway) that if you were to bring a bit of the plant in question indoors and hold it in front of the page, I have no doubt you would be able to make a positive identification, especially with the descriptions to help. All it takes is a bit of attention to detail, which let's be honest if you are foraging, you are meant to have anyway ;)The book is divided up in to all the families of plants making it easy to navigate, here and there the author has included a few poisonous plants as learning about these is half the battle when it comes to not poisoning yourself and the way it is written feels like how somebody would talk, as though you have someone there mentoring you which I thought was nice.In summary, a dozen or fewer average quality photos (take into account there must be a few hundred in the book) is all I can really pick out to fault. The whole book is really quality and I think if you are planning on foraging seriously, you won't be disappointed with it. £20 well spent! :)

I bought this book because it's mentioned as a reference in Alys Fowler's foraging book. Its strength is that it covers plants which are toxic yet might be confused with the edible plants. Its weakness is the monochrome illustrations. It's a weighty tome unsuited to carrying around, and is more use in informing the forager before we leave home with a good identification guide, or for use in confirming a plant is edible before we eat it. Some of it seems to be rather "extreme foraging" in that if a plant is so bitter it needs its flavour tempering with lots of fats, I'm not convinced I'm dedicated enough to try it. But that's personal taste. As a reference book this one is very good and one I will refer to often.

Interesting book with some good features, such as helping to distinguish between similar plants. I was very disappointed with the illustrations though as they are black & white & in some cases the definition is poor & the layout of them in the text slightly confusing. Like other reviewers have said, you really need a good field guide to use with this book, which is a real pity because with better illustrations this would be brilliant rather than just good. If I had picked it up in a shop, rather than buying online, I would probably have put it down again after a glance at the pictures. Having said that, I think it is worth buying for the other content.

First of all , this is a really good guide for the British isles , there is a lot of useful information . I like the use of a scale beside some of the photos . One of the things that could have made it better would have been full colour pictures instead of which all photos are in black and white .

This book covers all the basics and much more, it lacks colour , but the black and white pictures are usually a close up of the leaves so you can go quite some way to identifying from these, it is organise into families to help you get use to spotting the characteristics eventually making it quicker for you to identify, there is also a useful list of the places (cliffs, heaths, walls, woods, wood edges, roadside and more) giving a list of what grows in those places. There are uses and or a recipes for all.I find it interesting to read and get facts I never knew, such as using silver birch twigs to flavour peas (buy the book to see how though)

Whilst this is a very good reference book, I feel it's let down a little by the black & white photos (which are great in themselves but just not good enough for identification). Interesting comments, detailed write-ups and the occasional recipe make this more of a kind of book that you will reach for after a foraging trip, just to confirm edibility or usage, rather than one to be carried in the field. It wins a worthy place on the bookshelf but won't be replacing Richard Maybe's 'Food for Free' or Roger Phillips' 'Wild Food' just yet...

This is a nice book for reference but not really practical - think printed versions of encyclopedia britannica if your memory goes back that far. i find little use for it as an identification book and it is certainly no field guide - although doesnt claim to be . There are not a great deal of pictures and those that are in the book are in black and white, and not particularly clear. Not sure how the author intended for this book to be used, but regardless, given the price of the book, one would expect colour. If this is your first book (as it was mine) or if you want an identification/field guide then I would look elsewhere.

The book more than 400 pages, and is quite detailed. It is divided into families, which botanicaly is adequate. For every plant, you have the distribution, the habitat, the description, the uses/recipes, and some time other information. However the photos of the plants are in black and white, and to me of bad quality. Interestingly, it has a section on seaweed. The book is however much more detailed than "Food for free" of the same format. In "Food for free" however the photos are splendid.