- Pre-order Price Guarantee: order now and if the Amazon.co.uk price decreases between the time you place your order and the release date, you'll be charged the lowest price. Here's how (terms and conditions apply)
Collins Gem - Food For Free
and over 900,000 other books are available for Amazon Kindle .
Learn more
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||
Did you know you can trade in your old books for an Amazon.co.uk Gift Card to spend on the things you want? Visit the Amazon.co.uk Trade-In Store for more details. |
Special Offers and Product Promotions
Frequently Bought Together
Product details
|
More About the Author
Product Description
Review
‘Thirty years after its initial publication, the forager's bible continues to inspire and enthral.’
Scottish Field
‘Still a classic’
The Financial Times
‘Armed with this guide, this month you could be sampling the simple pleasures of eating a fleshy Hottentot fig straight from a Devon clifftop, making elderflower fritters gathered from the hedgerows, or frying fairy-ring champignons picked off your lawn. With its charming painted illustrations, it is a book to savour in itself.’
Devon Life
Product Description
The ideal portable companion, the world-renowned Collins Gem series returns with a fresh new look and updated material.
This is the perfect pocket guide for aspiring foragers. Over 100 edible plants are listed, fully illustrated and described, together with recipes and other fascinating details on their use throughout the ages.
Practical advice on how to pick along with information on countryside laws and regulations on picking wild plants helps you to plan your foray with a feast in mind.
This is the ideal book for both nature lovers and cooks keen to enjoy what the countryside has to offer.
Tags Customers Associate with This Product(What's this?)Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.
|
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Customer Reviews
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
130 of 131 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Handy Pocket Volume,
By
This review is from: Collins Gem - Food For Free (Paperback)
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.
102 of 104 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Excellent source of reference - Highly recommended,
By
This review is from: Food for Free (Paperback)
I got this book from my local library but loved it so much that I am going to get my own copy for future reference. After reading this book I went out for a walk and picked some blackberries, elderberries & sloes, which were growing in abundance some 10 minutes from my house! This book opened my eyes to stuff that I usually overlook in the hedgerows and provided me with some useful information about the type of plants, fruits and fungi that are edible (and perhaps not always well known), with recipe ideas too. It encouraged me to venture out into the fresh air and walk in local woodland, along river banks and fields etc. I even found some of the highly recommended Parasol mushrooms! Wonderful book and really, really useful. Worth every penny.
337 of 347 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Excellent pocket sized guide,
This review is from: Collins Gem - Food For Free (Paperback)
This is a 2004 version and worthy addition to the very popular and pocket-sized Collins Gem series. ISBN 0-00-718303-8. Food For Free - A Fantastic Feast of Plants and Folklore.The book starts with an introduction by the author Richard Mabey. It then has short sections titled 'Roots', 'Green Vegetables', 'Herbs', 'Spices', 'Flowers', 'Fruits', 'Making Jellies and Jams' and 'Nuts'. They include general advice, observations and uses. The main section of the book is given over to identification, with at least two pages per entry. An interesting section follows titled ’Picking Rules’ which gives advice on how to pick correctly how to stay safe. The last section before the main body of the book is a summary calendar which groups the picking times for entries into a colour-coded calendar - very useful as a quick reference. Every entry is accompanied with a drawing. Most of the drawings are excellent, but one or two are a little small and thus less detailed. Fortunately, almost every entry also has a photograph. The combination of colour drawings and colour photographs is what makes this little pocket book a true 'gem'. If the drawing is a little weak, the photo will be excellent and vice-versa. Almost fool proof. Each entry starts with the common English name (Latin is in small type at the top of the page)a colour illustration and description. Taking Beech (at random), it says: 'Widespread and common throughout the British Isles, especially on chalky soils. A stately deciduous tree, with smooth, grey bark, to 40m (130ft). Leaves: bright green, alternate, oval. Flowers: male drooping, stalked heads; female in pairs. Fruit: four inside a prickly brown husk, Sept-Oct. When ripe this opens into four lobes, this liberating the brown, three-sided nuts.' The illustration depicts a leaf, spring twig with unopened buds, an opening husk revealing nut inside and bare nut. The article continues with headings; Harvest/Pick, Uses, Beech Nut, Beech Nut Oil, Beech Leaf Noyau. The photo at the end of the entry is a good close-up of a twig with a cluster of husks. (I didn’t know, for example, that ‘fresh from the tree Beech leaves are a fine salad vegetable, as sweet as a mild cabbage though much softer in texture’.) The book, in line with its title, covers Plants and Trees, Fungi, Seaweeds and Shellfish. There is a glossary at the end and a page devoted to further reading. There is a List of Recipes and finally an index of entries in common English or Latin. There aren't that many books devoted to 'British' wild foods so to find one which lists over 100 edible plants, berries, mushrooms, seaweed and shellfish is most welcome. Given the true pocket size measurements of the Collins Gem series of books, the price of a fiver (£4-99) and the quality of each entry, this is as good as it gets. Obviously not a benchmark reference work or field-guide, but at least this fits in the pocket - which is the main purpose of such books, isn't it? Five stars! Would you like to see more reviews about this item?
|
Most Recent Customer Reviews |
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
![[Start the discussion]](http://g-ecx.images-amazon.com/images/G/02/x-locale/communities/discussion_boards/start-new-discussion-sec._V192198663_.gif){kind=small}
Listmania!
Look for similar items by category
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
- I am the Author, and I want to comment on my book.
- I am the Publisher, and I want to comment on this book.
|
