Wild foods and foraging can be enjoyed as a pleasant activity, searching hedgerows on a summer’s day; or the subject can be approached from a hard, utilitarian stay-alive survival perspective. And there are many shades in between. Whichever emphasis you prefer, the knowledge of which plant is OK to eat and which is unsafe, remains the same. Once you have digested the basic edible plant information in the good bushcraft and survival manuals you need to look for more specialist texts.

Below is my selection of wild food and foraging books that, if studied, will allow you to attain a broad knowledge of common edible (and poisonous) species of plants available in Britain and Europe. A common disappointement amongst beginners is that wild food books don’t provide a great guide to plant identification. The thing is, in general, they never set out to achieve this. They are wild food guides. If you don’t know the plants already, then these books need to be used in conjunction with good identification guides and keys. I have provided a list here.

All the books below come highly recommended. I won’t recommend a book that I haven’t read myself and all of them are on my bookshelf.

The links to Amazon are affiliate links. I’m being completely up-front about this. If you buy one of these books after following one of the links below, a small percentage of the purchase price goes to this site.

It doesn’t cost you any more to buy the book and it helps me to pay for the site without the need for intrusive and distracting advertising in amongst the articles. Everyone is a winner!

I won’t put a book on here that I don’t think is good because next time you won’t believe me. My credibility with you is more important to me than a small fraction of the cost of a book.

PLEASE NOTE – the lists for this page are currently being updated – please come back again soon!

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