Wild Foods Books

The third edition of J. Carol Vance's Wild Game Cookery includes recipes for large game, fowl and small game, fish and seafood, wild greens and edibles, and side dishes to go with your hand-harvested goodies.

The recipe layout is clear and easy to read, and we didn't encounter any mistakes or errors in the recipes we tried. Although I tend to be more forgiving of the lack of photos in cookbooks than some people, it's a bit of a shame that there aren't any in this book, seeing as plenty of people haven't worked with venison, duck, etc. and would probably love to see some mouth-watering photos.

Some recipes have notes such as "low fat" under them, although I'm dubious, seeing as I don't think I'd call any duck recipe low-fat (it tends to be a very fatty meat in my experience). There are some very handy tips, however, such as how to tell when your venison steaks are done to your liking.

No one was terribly impressed with the potato side dish we made from here, which had virtually no seasoning or flavor to it. Many of the dishes are minimally flavored, or use pre-blended flavorings such as Old Bay or packaged spicy ketchup. Sometimes this works out well with a given ingredient, but sometimes I was left wondering why one would need a cookbook to tell them to put some of these ingredients together.

I do recommend Wild Game Cookery if you aren't sure what to do with a duck, goose, venison steak, trout, etc. Most of the recipes are easy and delicious. If you're a well-seasoned cook looking for new and exciting things to add to your repertoire, however, there are probably better choices out there.

My husband has been bringing venison and partridge home for years...but I never really knew what to do with it until I got this book. Now I make gourmet meals like Venison Scaloppine and Pheasant Breast Margarita! It has lots of easy recipes too, and even some vegetarian ones like Dandelion Salad and Wild Rice with Mushrooms. Bon Appetit!

After reading this cookbook, I felt like the graduate of a low-key cooking course. The mystery of stocks and sauces is solved in this practical, yet sophisticated guide to the preparation of fish, fowl, wild game and natural foods. Vance leads her readers ever so gently and enthusiastically from foraging for wild cattails, to toeing for clams, to building your own smoker, to preparing diving duck. In the process, she makes everything sound easy! I found this cookbook to be a particularily refreshing guide to the preparation of natural foods from scratch ... the poaching liquid becomes the base of a soup, the scraps and bones go into a pot for the stock ... this is real cooking for real people. I found it worth reading just for the newsy notes, comments and tips on how to make food preparation easy and simple. I don't fish or hunt, but I am an avid cook who is always wants to try something new. Most grocery stores offer an ever-widening selection of fish and game, but I am often not as "adventurous" as I'd like to be because I am unsure how to prepare & serve them. Vance's cookbook solves this dilemma and encourages me to be as "wild" as I'd like to be! If you are a hunter (or love someone who is), I would definitely include "Wild Game Cookery" on your Christmas wish list.

I had such a good time reading this book! I even tried to find the author on the web, but with no luck. I'd love to meet her. The recipes look good, the lessons about finding food in natural environments are invaluable, and the stories are entertaining. Anna Lee Robe-Terry takes us into the woods of West Virginia through the seasons to find and prepare truly local foods. Anyone who is interested in local food really must read this. And anyone who isn't sure if we're losing anything of value with mountain-top removal processes to get coal should read this too -- to understand what a precious environment is being destroyed. Thank you, Anna Lee!

Author Anna Lee Robe-Terry is a distant cousin of mine, who has written not just a book of recipes, but an evocation of the atmosphere of our northern West Virginia roots. Disabled by a chronic disease, she lost home, job and possessions until she moved onto the old Robe homestead in Marion County determined to survive. "If life gives you wild grapes, then make jelly" is her philosophy. She began investigating the wild plants that she had grown up with and educating herself in botany and the ways of the old settlers. Her recipes are wonderful just to read. I have tried the Snapping Turtle soup recipe myself and can recommend it as a definite change of pace from clam chowder. She also has a recipe for skunk (!) that resulted from a hilarious end to a hunting trip. I would recommend this book not only to people in the area, but those interested in its pioneer culture and folklore.

This book is what the title says - The complete mushroom book. It is the only book you need. Read it, learn and you can be safe picking all mushrooms in Sweden and the rest of the world. And then you can make the most delicius dishes with help from Antonio Carluccio's recipes. He is the most marveleus mushroom expert both in the woods, fields and citchen. I am very impressed!
Bo Johnsson

This book by an Italian, Antonio Carluccio, transplanted to England covers the botanical classifications of edible mushrooms and fungi, tips on collecting, a guide to identifying edible and toxic mushrooms, and a large collection of mushroom recipes. It has many things to recommend it, but it also should be given more than a cursory thought if you have an interest in purchasing the book.

As a compulsive book collector, I often justify the purchase of a book solely on the presence of one good idea comprising not much more than a page or two, but you may not have such liberal criteria when laying out the long green for a book, especially for bone white plants.

The devil's advocate view of this book is that:

It's coverage of mushroom identification and distinction of culinary from toxic is weak in that the book does not give a consistant photographic coverage to all species. I would be extremely nervous if I knew someone was using only this book as a field guide. A quick comparison photographs for the edible boletus badius on page 33 with the toxic russula emetica on page 71 shows how similar two very different mushrooms can look. The comparison is scarier when you see that the two species flourish at the same time of the year. My main point is that to a non-mycologist, this appears to be a very inadequate field guide. Much better would be one species per page with much more consistant coverage over all species.

While the title of the book refers to all mushrooms, it's emphasis is clearly on wild mushrooms. About 75 percent of all the recipes call for wild mushrooms, primarily morels and many of the recipes calling for cultivated species call for unusual or expensive species, up to and including truffles.

So what does that leave for the non-mushroom hunter living in Brooklyn? Here are some reasons for buying this book:

The well written text and good photography provides a worthy vicarious experience of the thrills of mushroom hunting in Devon, England.

The recipes give several worthy methods for preserving mushrooms, including drying and pickling. This is the material I would pick to primarily justify the purchase. I have not seen it anywhere else.

Even if you substitute the humble Pennsylvania button mushroom or the slightly more upscale cremini for the blue stocking morels and procinis, you get a wealth of recipes to add to a vegetarian diet. The recipes draw heavily from French and Italian cuisine, but they include a broad selection from various oriental cuisines as well. Even a fair number of German and Spanish dishes are included. Oddly, there seems to be practically no recipes for the portobello.

You also get useful practical tips on handling and eating mushrooms. The book makes it clear that almost every mushroom is healthier to eat cooked than to eat raw. I have heard it said that even our darling little Kennet Square button mushrooms have toxins which must be cooked to remove the toxins. Give the raw mushrooms a pass the next time you hit the salad bar. The information on taking special care with raw mushrooms and alcohol is pretty chilling, but again, as testified by the long popularity of Coq au Vin, this danger is eliminated by thorough cooking.

In general, I would rate the culinary advice on mushroom technique to be very useful.

Since I am very fond of cookbooks on single subjects, I recommend this book for the recipes and techniques and background on mushroom culture and collection in the wild, as long as you keep the wild part to your armchair. The price is a bit high, so I would not click on the order button without some check on alternate titles, especially the volume by Jane Grigson, `The Mushroom Feast' which I have not yet had the pleasure to sample.

Well cooked game is healthy. It feeds the body and the soul.

I do not myself hunt for deer and venison since my preferences favor the bird on the wing in flight from a pointing dog. But I join my friends at the venison table when invited and we'll get some venison at Savernor's in honor of Julia Child once in a while.

It is the right thing to do. My best hunting friends are gourmet cooks. It is the right and best natural solution. I am not ready at my age to give into the common neurosis of the day about meats etc. Although I do agree that we eat way too much corporate food that is poorly fed and poorly cultivated. It deprives us not only of our nutrition but also of our sense of what it is to be alive ourselves.

I am increasingly supportive of the whole/fresh foods movement and I think there is no substitute for good game that has lived in the relative wild and has been cared for not only for the food value but also for their spirit and beauty.

This book is full of nice ideas and can provide many hours of joy and pleasure in preparing that special meal at a special time. My copy came from a good friend who is a gourmet cook. In fact, as I reflect on it, all my shooting friends are gourmets.

If you cannot eat what you kill, then you are not right for the world of guns, dogs, a glass of wine and a day in the field. If you cannot see the humanity and care in all if, you are also losing your connections with the touchstones of life. My family has lived on a nice farm in Ohio for about the last 200 years. They raised, loved, cared for and lived side by side with -- and then off -- of the things they could raise or slaughter with their hands.

All of them are great cooks and all of them are sane and upright human beings.

When I sit down to a gourmet dinner with the game of the day or the catch of the day, I celebrate my ancestors and often wish we could all return to the simpler days free of the maddening crowds and the neurotic tendencies of our current age.

My husband and I both hunt so needless to say we have a lot of venison in our freezer. This book is great for needing new receipes. The cost is well worth what you get. It's fun to make some of these for friends and share your receipes with them. It will definately make the weary love venison!

What a great resource, This is a must for a hiker and avid outdoors person like myself. I have used and have enjoyed this book on many of my outings...Free food God provided right on the trail. Thanks for finally providing an easy to use and informative book.

This book is a valuable educational resource. I have several books on botany and plant identification, but this book puts it all together on wild food plants. God's Free Harvest is a must for anyone interested in taking advantage of nature's free foods.

This book is unlike any other I have ever read. It shows you how to
connect with nature at a very intimate level making the natural world
accessible to all of us as it was to our native ancestors. You will learn
where to begin and what to focus on in order to integrate with our natural
world. This book covers what was second nature to our ancestors. Almost all of my how-to and what questions were answered in this very extensive book.

For instance you might want to know what is available for cooking spices or deodorant or how to keep the mosquitoes and ticks away. It's all in this book and so much more. This is the must have book for anyone interested in reconnecting or finding their place in nature. Nature enthusiasts, hikers,hunters, campers, and anyone curious about how or what in nature will lovethis book. I keep it handy and use it as a reference manual.


You need this book.

This is a very interesting book. It covers many different kinds of plants, although it does not go into much detail about each one. But it is definatly worth the price. If you are really interested in learning how to forage for wild plants, I would recomend this as a starter book. It should be used along with some other books, such as a field identification guide and maybe a book that goes into more detail with each plant.

This was a gift. Slow to ship, but the recipient said it was woth the wait.

I have used several receipts in this book. For sure, they were sent in by hunters. The stores sent in by the doners of the recipes are fantastic. I can imagine the situations in which these recipes were used around the bond fires in the hunting camps. You will not be disapponted when you use this book to prepare your favorite game.

This is a great book for new collectors of edible plants. What's most important for identifying plants? What it looks like in that particular time of year. This has a great layout for exactly that. This tells you exactly what's good for collecting (or appreciating) at the very moment you've decided to go looking.
I think this is also great book for trying to figure out what to do with all the edible plants once you're finished collecting them. Some good recipies and basic medicinal uses.

I've got an abundant weed in my garden and I'm wondering if I can eat it. So I bought this book as a reference to see if I could find the plant. It didn't help. The drawings are black and white line drawings and its not laid out as a reference book. I didn't find my plant after leafing through the whole book. I live in the desert southwest and the author states almost noone comes here. This is not a book for westerners.

I bought this book for my mom and for all the unknown plants around my house. And I find it a pretty good book for research and fast lookups of odd plants and what they do.

This is one fantastic book. It is loaded with information that has helped me find plants on my land that I would have never noticed. A must book to have.

While the author seems like a nice guy, I found this book to be an expensive rip. Aside from the fact that it is printed cheaply on thick newsprint, the author should have named it, "Plants I like in Central Park". It is clear that he has spent little time west of the rockies, let alone west of Central Park where most of his endearing anecdotes originate.

The author continually makes unsupported statements about "Indians or native americans'" use of plants "for female reproductive problems". Give me a break. What is a reader supposed to do with that so called knowlege?

The book is too big to be a field guide, and so disorganized that it is very hard to extract useful information. The biggest fault, however, is that it really only pays lip service to the western half of the USA, and it should have stated so in the title.

I'm going to try to sell mine asap.

dan

An excellent and handy pocketguide to survival, Ray Mears puts his knowledge in this book and it shows. The info is at hand, practical and easy to read.

Remember the old question, what book would you take with you to a deserted island?

Well... this is the one.

THIS BOOK IS EASY TO UNDERSTAND WHILE IT STILL GIVES YOU A LOT OF INFORMATION.
I WOULD RECCOMMEND THIS BOOK TO MY FRIENDS.
THNX,
BILL CUNNINGHAM

The book is very focused, informative and explained.
It could have a chapter on GPS, but we get it with the GPS so its ok not to have it here. And using a compas is explained.
On the plant food, the chapter could have been clearer.
But the chapter on survival in the wilderness is indispensable.

The subtitle of this book is: a guide to the resources and materials available in the wild and how to use them for food, shelter, warmth, and navigation. The author has parceled out his observations, instruction and advise according to the four seasons. So rather than having a single chapter on types of shelter which one could locate or construct in the wilderness within the various climates or seasons, he parcels out this information over the four main chapters of the book. He does this for each category of survival: shelter, fire, water, cordage, and food. His intention seems to be that the reader use the book as an introductory survival course beginning in the spring, focusing on the particular type of shelter shown in that chapter and not getting distracted by other types that either cannot or need not be built then.

There is some sense to this kind of organization, but yet he leaves any discussion of hygiene or cooking, for example, until the summer chapter, when surely this information would have been just as relevant to the spring. If you have to at least selectively read ahead anyway to be better informed, why not just organize the book from the start so that the categories of survival occur as separate chapters, with the special circumstances of each season being discussed within the category, rather than breaking the content of the category across the four seasons? But the organization according to seasons allows the author to focus upon nature as it lives in each season, which seems to be as important to him as the types of shelter or the various methods of starting a fire.

The book is well illustrated and feels quite accessible. There is quite a bit of useful information on tinder and laying out fuel for a fire, even though it doesn't all occur, as it logically should, in a single chapter; and there is much, also, on cordage, but again, not all in one place. Because of the large and clear illustrations, it seems a good enough first book on wilderness survival. It does not overwhelm the reader with detail, but for some readers it is that very complexity of detail and a more rigorous organization that would be missed.

First, this book is not about wildnerness survival. The recipes that include garlic and butter are well, not practical if your lost in the woods. The book is more geared towards going into the wilderness with everything you need at your disposal, and not lacking the essentials. The information is well presented, and does not deal with emergencies but rather going out into the woods and enjoying yourself.

The book is more about developing a spiritual relationship with wildnerness and emergency wildernesss survival is a matter of life and death, and not a romantic experience where you walk out having touched the hand of God. If you live, you will probably find God. I bought this book for the sole purpose of learning about survival in the wilderness. I found alot of very useful information, but, having a pretty solid base already, the book is still a fun read.

The sections on cordage are very well done, and the sections on pottery, skinning are also well done. I think if you want to have a rewarding wilderness experience without the dangers of being lost, this book is awesome. If your looking for what to do in case your lost, this might not cover all the bases.

Still a nice book that I frequently thumb through while sitting in the bathroom.

This book lists a short description of most wild edibles. It has only passable drawn illustrations.

This is a really mediocre book with even more mediocre line drawings and the layout is poor. The "recipes" are integrated in narrative style right into the same area of the book that contains botanical information about the plant. The book also contains useless information about what Native Americans did with the plant 150 years ago. Personally, I find it very hard to identify plants from simple, black and white drawings, particularly when said drawings are small and not very good, and most particularly when it is a plant I intend on eating! I am really sorry I purchased this book, but I purchased it together with another book called "The Forager's Harvest" by Samuel Thayer which is, by contrast, EXCELLENT.

I really enjoyed this book! It is broken down according to type of wild edible (ex. fruit, pot herb, salad, beverages, nuts, etc. The only thing I would change would be the layout under each plant. It's hard to discern where the recipes are because they are incorporated right into the paragraph. It would be nice if the recipes were titled and had lists of ingredients and then directions.

This is the first book I've found that ever really tells you what wild plants are edible.

It's not a "read through" book, but it is eminently valueable for finding out if specific nuts/berries/roots are edible. There are line drawings and Latin names to help with identification. The writing style is informative but not persnicketty. Each plant has 'receipes' and occasionally anecdotes. Infact there are so many 'receipes' that it occasionally comes over as a frusterated gormet cookbook!

But don't worry; the first and best purpose is finding out which plants are edible. How to prepare them is merely a bonus.

In short, this is what I've been looking for for years: a consise, trustworthy guide to identifying wild edibles.
THE book to own on the subject.

amr

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