Food For Free - 40th Anniversary Edition - Richard Mabey

[Ash Blue]

I bought the Collins Gem pocket size book a few months ago, which is a handy little book. But then this 40th anniversary edition was published recently. 464 pages containing over 200 edible plants, split into sections of Trees, Herbaceous Plants, Fungi, Lichens, Seaweeds and Shellfish. Excellent full page photographs go along side pages of the info about the plant, including everything you need to know to identify it. Each also contains a bit about the history (more interesting than I thought) as well as recipes. Some of the plants in this book have 2 full size pages side by side of 1 high quality photograph. This book also talks a bit about edible plants that were not listed in previous editions, although just a few don't have photographs. These are the one's that may not be worth foraging for several reasons (size, taste, etc), though it gives you the opportunity to research further into it on the internet if you so choose. This book is truly the bible of foraging, and when I first browsed through it, I felt like a kid at Christmas getting his first bike. Definitely the ultimate book for beginner and advanced foragers. I couldn't recommend it more, we should all have this book!

[baldybloke]

Even have a Zippo to cook with!! I have an old original hardback version and a paperback on for taking out and about. Tis a good book though.

[southeast-isher]

a beautiful book

[oldjerry]

I've got a first edition,and I've bought every book since.Anybody suffering from depression would do well to read his later stuff.

I've a lot of time for Monbiot,but this bloke is the man..