The New Wildcrafted Cuisine: Exploring the Exotic Gastronomy of Local Terroir

This book is such eye candy and dreamy ideas! Love it!

The anti-foraging viewpoint is based on the belief that foraging can strip ecosystems of important foods for wildlife. One can extrapolate that this viewpoint is meant to protect and preserve the environment.In my review, I would like to address whether the negative reviews of others based solely on an anti-foraging viewpoint are warranted, and, as a larger point, to discuss whether this viewpoint, expressed by negatively reviewing this book solely based on its overall topic, helps or harms the environment.I have thoroughly read every page of this book, shared it with my children, and made several recipes, some many times. I believe that environmentally conscious people should support this book because:1. The author dedicates a section to foraging responsibly. He writes about his sadness at seeing denuded plants after restaurant suppliers have unethically sourced an ingredient. He encourages readers to consider the impact before foraging.2. Many of the negative reviews encourage people to plant gardens rather than forage. The author writes that he plants his favorite food sources, and he encourages readers to do the same.3. Foraging leads to an increased desire to protect the environment because humans are primed to enjoy 'hunting' in changing environments and they create strong memories based on food.4. Once you get hooked on wild plants, you'll want to create space for them everywhere. Suddenly it's perfectly logical to want to rip out your water-hogging grass lawn and replace it with wild mint.5. Some ideas in this book have no impact on animal life. For example, I learned to make my own sea salt. I like the taste so much I doubt I'll ever buy salt again. No birds or insects were impacted by my salt, and one less product is being manufactured and shipped for me.5. Many ideas in this book are from plant material that is not scarce. I learned to make pine needle tea, and no one is going to miss the pine needles I took because there are so many. I began cooking and making fertilizer with local seaweed, which piles up and rots on our beaches. I also learned to eat every part of the nopales, which is also so plentiful here that huge patches rot unused in the fall.6. The author advocates eating insects as a source of protein and heme iron. You can't get more local or sustainable than that.7. The author advocates using rocks as plates and cooking tools - which removes even more products from the product stream, further benefitting the environment.I could continue, but I believe I've shown that the author is in fact very concerned with ethical foraging, and also that ethical foraging can result in environmental benefits.

This is a reference book that’s been very helpful with identifying, foraging and using wild edibles my area has in common with the book’s focus area

Although The New Wildcrafted Cuisine is an exceptionally beautiful presentation of an exploration into the natural world for unique culinary delights, it is also a primary account of one's creative interrelationship with the plants of one's bioregion. This work goes beyond any previous wild plant foraging guide or wild food cookbook not only as a 'next step', but by leaps and bounds. The spirit of this book is conveyed through its unique interpretations of the author's local flora creating through the ancient principles of food alchemy and preservation and an intimacy developed with Place. As a bioregional herbalist and forager, I feel this is not only essential to deeper understanding of plants, but is inevitable in our return to the "Eden" of our home landscape. Further, I feel that one cannot begin to comprehend "stewardship" of the landscape short of participating in it. What I call the "Museumification" of our landscape in which people presumably "Leave No Trace" (how is that physically possible? It simply is not) and view Nature from afar essentially prevents us from fully participating in the life around us in a way that cannot be conveyed through words, guidebooks, or university courses. I can see that the work behind this creation brought the author in direct contact with Nature and it evidently made an indelible mark on him and his life's work. Responsible action is assured for all those who develop intimate relationship with their homeland. Allowing for mistakes, we must each follow our calling down this path and bring this enhanced awareness back to our community through our work. I personally have not met a forager who has clear-cut a forest for timber, or bladed desert for a new road or new development, or sprayed toxic chemicals across 1,000's of acres of our national forest to eradicate undesirable plants. Yet each day these activities continue on, sanctioned, and "in our best interest." The modern forager, in best practices, is seeking to re-establish harmonious relationship with her surroundings. This book does that, ambitiously.Instead of scorn for an irresponsible endeavor, I see light in a direction of responsible interrelationship with our natural environment when I read through The New Wildcrafted Cuisine. A work unlike any other. A work I would like to create some day, emerging from my own terrain.

Exquisite full of beautiful photographs and valuable information. A book to cherish for a lifetime and pass onto the next generation.

Fantastic book. Would browse it again and again. Great recipes, personal advises, common sense comments, beautiful photos... Perfect. A bit dear but certainly worth the price.

Liked it. most wonderful gift to share!

Really good book, highly recommend for any foragers

Wow