Product Description

Fans of Food for Free will be delighted at this new format -- ideal for carrying in a rucksack. Over 100 edible plants are featured together with recipes and other interesting culinary information. With details on how to pick, when to pick and regulations on picking. This new format of a best-selling title provides a portable guide for all those who enjoy what the countryside has to offer. Over 100 plants are listed, fully illustrated and described, together with recipes and other fascinating information about their use throughout the ages. The recipes are listed so that you can plan your foray with a feast in mind. This is the ideal book for both nature-lovers and cooks. Particularly with today's emphasis on the freshest and most natural of foods. There is also practical advice on how to pick plus the countryside laws and regulations on picking wild plants.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #98 in Books
• Published on: 2004-08-02
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 239 pages

Scottish field, July 07
" Thirty years after its initial publication, the forager's bible continues to inspire and enthral."

Synopsis
Fans of Food for Free will be delighted at this new format -- ideal for carrying in a rucksack. Over 100 edible plants are featured together with recipes and other interesting culinary information. With details on how to pick, when to pick and regulations on picking. This new format of a best-selling title provides a portable guide for all those who enjoy what the countryside has to offer. Over 100 plants are listed, fully illustrated and described, together with recipes and other fascinating information about their use throughout the ages. The recipes are listed so that you can plan your foray with a feast in mind. This is the ideal book for both nature-lovers and cooks. Particularly with today's emphasis on the freshest and most natural of foods. There is also practical advice on how to pick plus the countryside laws and regulations on picking wild plants.

About the Author
Richard Mabey, author and broadcaster, writes regularly for The Sunday Times, The Sunday Telegraph and The Independent. He won wide acclaim on the publication of the original Food for Free in 1972. He is an active member of national and local conservation groups and lives in Norfolk.

Customer Reviews

Start beating the credit crunch and digest Food For Free!
I do like a bit of hedgerow and it's great to enjoy the free gifts from Mother Nature, but until I got my hands on a copy of this pocket sized guide, it was a little unclear.

This book is ideal and helps you understand what's under your nose in the gardens! So many common plants can be used in cooking and yet still we pay mini-fortunes for little bags of this and that in the shops. This book certainly helped me to identify and try some of the more obscure plants that I had absolutely no idea I could eat.

It's clear descriptions of what they look like alongside nice imagery of the plants themselves help you feel brave enough to give them a pluck and cook and the warnings are there to be heeded, particularly when it comes to mushrooms (personally, I'd only go for a puffball, you can't go wrong there)....

Although it's an academic book, it's written in an entertaining style and makes for an enjoyable read too.

I would highly recommend this for anyone who's trying to pull in their belts a bit, not because it will give them 'all' the answers, but it WILL help them to understand that all food doesn't come from the shops and that's a great step forward. As is cooking from fresh which of course this book sings out loud and clear.

There's always a really good reason why a book reprints and there are too many to list for this little fella.

Order it and don't leave it to fester on a shelf somewhere - keep it handy in your bag or coat pocket.

Tracey Smith
Author of 'The Book of Rubbish Ideas'
The Book of Rubbish Ideas: An interactive, room-by-room, guide to reducing household waste.

An excellent little book
This little gem of a book should be in every backpackers back pocket. Concise, focused and descriptive you'll have no trouble identifying the plants and shellfish. There has been some comments about lack of information on animals to eat, this is probably because rabbits, pheasants and such are classed as game and will belong to the landowner. Whilst it's ok to pick a few plants, mushrooms and shellfish it will probably be frowned on if you start blasting away at the countryside or setting traps!

A Handy Pocket Volume


Richard Mabey is the author of several books on flora and fauna so he is well qualified to write a book such as this. Over one hundred edible plants are featured together with recipes and other culinary information. There is also information on how to pick and when to pick and the regulations on picking which are very important. As I come from farming stock I have to say that food for free does not mean going into a field and digging up a few potato plants or for that matter cabbages.

There are plenty of hedgerow plants available for free, if you are prepared to look for them and suffer the odd few scratches. There is nothing better than a bowl of freshly picked blackberries or raspberries, if you can get them home before they are all eaten.

Plants that are edible are fully illustrated and described and the recipes are both old and new. Other fascinating information is how the plants have been used through the ages. An ideal book for all those who are nature lovers and like the idea of something for nothing. I think the last part covers 99.9% of the population.