The First-Time Forager: A Complete Beginner’s Guide to Britain’s Edible Plants (National Trust)

Great starter book for the budding forager.

This book is very informative and great for beginners like myself! Easy to use, pocket sized, the kids were very interested in the dangerous foliage section and then became slightly worried every plant in the book was dangerous! That took a bit of reassuring!

Gifted to my grandchildren and they’re finding it fun

Exactly what’s needed for reference.

He loves it

This book is small, which would be a positive were it some comprehensive field guide but it's most certainly not.The introduction sets the tone, as we are expected to take seriously the following sentence, “I've found more diversity of wild food in the city than I ever have in the countryside”. And so follows a bizarre fantasy adventure starring a city dwelling twit and his Ray Mears meets Heston Blumenthal persona.We're invited to turn dandelions into Horta Vrasta, stinging nettles into Spanakopita, to indulge in an evening of Hazlenut Manhattans, then to treat the ensuing hangover with Horseradish Bloody Marys, to make Puttanesca with nasturtium seeds instead of capers, and when we're in the mood for something sweet, to go out and forage up a frozen yoghurt with a Himalayan honeysuckle ripple.It's pretentious, to such an extent that it reads like satire. You stick with it just to hear the next poncey story or recipe suggestion. This in itself is pretty positive to me but I can't rate it as such because I think most people buying this would actually be interested in the practicalities of foraging and as a practical guide this is lacking in substance.However, to its credit the author has clearly used an abundance of caution when picking which edibles to feature, choosing plants that are easy to identify and that are not readily confused with dangerous species. To the rear of the book there is an excellent section with information specifically about poisonous plants and I found this to be the most interesting and useful part of the book. I also appreciate the absence of fungi (puffball aside), that subject is beyond the scope of introductory foraging guides.All in all, I do kind of like this based purely on novelty factor, it has some gems in it, “this recipe uses frozen blackberries, something foragers can often find in the back of their freezers”. I think the author is probably a very decent person that throws great dinner parties, that's where their heart is and this book would have been much better marketed as a novelty cookbook utilising UK native plant species, rather than a foraging guide.

Love this book - easy to follow, pictures. Thanks.

This is a great book teaching you all about which plants can be foraged and used for food and more. The book is filled with some fascinating information and photos and pictures help you to really see which plant you are looking for in the wild. What's interesting is just how many plants there are we could forage and use today but we dont. ?onger review coming soon