Chestnut Herbal School

The Best Books on Foraging Wild Foods and Herbs

Compiled by Meghan Gemma and Sarah Sorci with Juliet Blankespoor
Photography by Juliet Blankespoor

Hands holding a stack of books about foraging.
Hands holding a stack of books about foraging.

The following list of The Best Foraging Books is a sneak peek into our 375-hour Online Foraging Course: Edible and Medicinal Wild Herbs. This program is THE most comprehensive online course on the topic! The printable manual is 600 pages long and filled with loads of easy-to-follow recipes, herbal medicinal uses, and gorgeous close-up photos for plant identification. In fact, most of our plant profiles contain more detail than you’ll find in any book on wild foods and herbs.

Throughout the course, you’ll befriend the most common edible and medicinal wayside plants, including dandelion, stinging nettles, violet, yarrow, burdock, rose, goldenrod, and many more. Plus, you’ll receive the foundational ground rules of foraging safety and ethics, and then dive deep into botany and plant identification. Before you know it, you’ll have the skills and confidence to safely identify and harvest wild plants.

The best way to learn about wild plants—right at their side

 

If you’re curious about foraging, we recommend one of the first things you do is cultivate an ethos centered on sustainability and reciprocity. See our article on Foraging for Wild Edibles and Herbs for more on this. Next, set yourself up with a stack of great foraging guides (see the resources listed below). These resources are highly applicable in most temperate climates and are generalist resources. Some of these only cover wild foods and don’t explore medicinal plants, whereas others explore both. These books are best accompanied by a regional field guide or two to help you round out your identification.

Apprenticing yourself to a seasoned forager is another fantastic option. We offer our mentorship to you in our 375-hour Online Foraging Course: Edible and Medicinal Wild Herbs.

You can also check out our Online Herbal Immersion, which features an entire module on foraging, and the wild foods section of our blog.

Note that we don’t receive any compensation for promoting the books on this list—they are simply our personal favorites. Plenty of fantastic field guides and wild foods books didn’t make it into this post—there are so many to choose from! You can also check out our features on regional wild food books and our top picks for free online foraging resources.


Juliet’s top shelf library and reading nook

ACCESSING BOOKS: We recommend purchasing from small and/or BIPOC-owned bookstores whenever possible. Here is one list of Black-owned bookstores, many of which offer an online store. Some books on this list may be more difficult to find and/or be more expensive, since they are offered by smaller publishing houses with smaller print runs. For tips on affordably accessing books, visit our Herbal Books Hub.

*Titles by BIPOC authors or co-authors (Black, Indigenous, People of Color) are written in purple.


Samuel Thayer’s books are indispensable for the wild foods forager

1. Every Book on Foraging by Samuel Thayer

Thayer’s books are hands-down the best resources on wild foods, being enjoyable to read and very informational. If you can only purchase a book or two to get started, we suggest beginning with his guides. Thayer’s books apply widely in the United States and Canada and include many plants found elsewhere in the temperate world. (Note: Thayer does not discuss medicinal uses).

The Forager's Harvest: A Guide to Identifying, Harvesting, and Preparing Edible Wild Plants by Samuel Thayer

Thayer shares detailed material on plant identification (accompanied by color photos) and food preparation, along with entertaining anecdotal stories. He specifically emphasizes wild foods and doesn’t discuss medicinal properties; however, his books are valuable field guides for identifying many herbs that straddle the food-medicine divide (elderberry, for example). Highly recommended.

Nature's Garden: A Guide to Identifying, Harvesting, and Preparing Edible Wild Plants by Samuel Thayer

This is the companion guide to Thayer’s The Forager’s Harvest, featuring a fresh collection of plants. Equally essential and recommended.

Incredible Wild Edibles: 36 Plants That Can Change Your Life by Samuel Thayer

Incredible Wild Edibles is styled in a similar fashion to Thayer’s other books but covers a completely new selection of herbs, roots, nuts, and berries. (Note: Thayer does not discuss medicinal uses.)

Sam Thayer's Field Guide to Edible Wild Plants of Eastern and Central North America by Samuel Thayer

An amazing foraging field guide that covers an impressive 679 edible species (although each species is discussed in less detail than in his previous books). The book is organized by plant groups based on botanical features and also includes range maps, gorgeous color photos, an excellent poisonous plants section, and Sam’s trademark humor. Truly an indispensable foraging reference!

You can purchase Thayer’s books directly and check out his website here.

2. Foraging & Feasting: A Field Guide and Wild Food Cookbook by Dina Falconi, illustrated by Wendy Hollender

We treasure this book for its beautiful illustrations and delicious recipes. It’s easily our most reached-for wild foods cookbook. The book is divided into two main parts: botanical drawings paired with key identification tips, followed by a bounty of herbal, wild foods recipes. Many of the recipes are flexible for a variety of diets—gluten free, dairy free, sugar free, raw—and Dina includes an array of master recipes that can be adapted to different plants throughout the seasons. There’s also a brief medicinal discussion of each herb as well as some nutritional tidbits. Many of the featured plants are common in the herb garden (elderberry, rose, bee balm, etc.), so this is an excellent resource for the gardener and forager alike.

If you love Dina’s recipes, you can catch more of them in our Online Foraging Course—she’s a contributor! You can purchase her book and access her blog via Botanical Arts Press.

3. Edible Wild Plants: Wild Foods from Dirt to Plate by John Kallas

This is one of the finest books on wild edible greens, with thorough species descriptions, beautiful photographs, nutritional profiles, and lots of recipes. Wild greens are an abundant food source in nearly all temperate places—including cities—so this book is a valuable resource for foragers everywhere. Kallas himself is a botanist, teacher, nutritionist, and wild foods expert who has foraged throughout the United States, Canada, and the European countryside. We appreciate that the book covers fewer plants in greater depth, which is more helpful than superficially covering hundreds of plants. This book focuses on identifying and harvesting wild foods; it doesn’t explore medicinal uses. More about John’s work can be found on his Wild Food Adventures website.

The library and apothecary at Mountain Gardens in Celo, North Carolina

4. Identifying and Harvesting Edible and Medicinal Plants by “Wildman” Steve Brill and Evelyn Dean

You can gather an immense amount of wild food knowledge from this book. Over 500 edible and medicinal plants are organized by harvesting season, with identifying characteristics, detailed preparation information, and beautiful line drawings to accompany each one. This was one of the first books on foraging Juliet owned, she’s learned more about wild foods from this book than any other. In the back of the book, you’ll find a collection of Steve’s recipes. You can purchase the book and visit Steve’s blog here.

“Say what—I’ve never come across that before!”

5. Native Harvests: American Indian Wild Foods and Recipes by E. Barrie Kavasch

A well-rounded book featuring recipes with wild plants commonly found in temperate climates. Also includes information about Native American medicinal and ceremonial plant uses, as well as guidance on plant identification and poisonous plants. Beautifully illustrated by the author.


These wild foods books focus on the culinary aspect of wild edibles

6. Ugly Little Greens: Gourmet Dishes Crafted from Foraged Ingredients by Mia Wasilevich

There’s nothing ugly about this book, which spoofs on the common misconceptions about weeds. It’s packed with fancy wild food recipes and sumptuous color photos. Many of the recipes are easy to prepare, but in general, this book is ideal for the epicurean forager, with dishes like nettles benedict and cattail pollen madeleines. Not just limited to greens, it features a diverse collection of plants that grow in most temperate to subtropical climates. The book blends plant identification with preparation but dials in on the recipe side of things. Therefore, it’s best accompanied by a field guide that features a lot of identification. We’re excited that Mia is a recipe contributor in the Foraging Course!

7. Wild Food: A Complete Guide For Foragers by Roger Phillips

This wonderful classic was written by a British family who spent time in North America, camping and preparing wild foods and drinks. A wide range of wild edibles are covered, including mushrooms, herbs, seaweeds, flowers, roots, greens, nuts, and berries. The book features loads of simple recipes accompanied by sublimely staged photos of wild foods dishes in their native habitat. (Think glamping, with a wild foods twist.) Be sure to purchase the 1986 edition of this book, which is affordable to purchase used, and offers more recipes and species profiles than the newer edition.

Everyone LOVES to key plants out

8. Wild Remedies: How to Forage Healing Foods and Craft Your Own Herbal Medicine by Rosalee de la Forêt and Emily Han

This book explores the benefits of two dozen common wild plants—many of which can be grown in the garden for those who aren’t called to foraging. Includes seventy-five tasty recipes and instructions for preparing remedies, plus detailed illustrations and beautiful photography to help with plant identification.

Burdock harvest (Arctium minus)

9. The Wild Wisdom of Weeds: 13 Essential Plants for Human Survival by Katrina Blair

We love the spirit of this book. It covers fewer plants than your average field guide but takes you on a deep journey of discovery with each one. It includes edible and medicinal uses for many of the most common weeds found worldwide in the temperate climate, along with ethnobotanical information. Some tips on identification are included, but we recommend using a field guide along with her descriptions to make sure you have the right plant. This is a great resource for both urban and rural dwellers. You can order the book here.

10. The New Wildcrafted Cuisine: Exploring the Exotic Gastronomy of Local Terroir by Pascal Baudar

Baudar’s book is truly groundbreaking, with delectable imagery and recipes that push the edge of even wild cuisine (edible insects, for example). In this light, we recommend his book for the curious cook, or for anyone wanting to take their wild food dishes to the next level. Arranged by season, the book balances progressive recipes with traditional preparations; lots of pictorial how-to’s feature fermentation and food preservation. Most plants in the book can be found throughout the temperate world, but others are found only in Mediterranean climates. This is a gorgeous book that is sure to spice up wild food conversation. You can read more about Pascal here.


“That looks good enough to eat!”

11. *100 Edible Mushrooms by Michael Kuo

Engaging to read, Kuo’s book features a hundred of the most common edible mushrooms and includes color photos, edibility ratings, descriptions, poisonous relatives and look-alikes, and a recipe section in the back of the book. Not exactly a pocket guide, but small enough to accompany you into the field. Juliet’s favorite foraging book on wild mushrooms for beginners.

Juliet’s herbal and botanical library

12. Discovering Wild Plants: Alaska, Western Canada, the Northwest by Janice Schofield Eaton

Don’t let the title of this book put you off—it’s relevant to temperate climates around the world and is a superb foraging field guide. The book covers 147 wild plants, detailing their identification, range, traditional and contemporary uses, and medicinal properties. Each plant is accompanied by photographs and line drawings. The book is currently out of print, making used copies a bit more expensive than other field guides, but it’s so good that it still made our list!

13. Do yourself a favor and also read: Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer

This book will grow your heart and soul, and we recommend it to absolutely everyone. Though not technically about foraging, Kimmerer’s writing on our relationship to land, food, medicine, and legacy will change how you live and forage. Prepare yourself for incredible storytelling, immense beauty, and possibly a lot of heartfelt tears.

Do you have a favorite wild foods book that didn’t make it onto our list?

We’d love to hear about it (including any regional guides that you enjoy)! There are so many wonderful books on this subject that we couldn’t include them all here. However, we give a shout-out to even more wild food and medicine resources on the blog. Visit our Foraging Hub for articles, recipes, and a roll call of our favorite foraging blogs, podcasts, and YouTube channels.

Felines enjoy the finer points of wild food identification

Meet Our Contributors:

Juliet Blankespoor

JULIET BLANKESPOOR is the founder, primary instructor, and Creative Director of the Chestnut School of Herbal Medicine, an online school serving thousands of students from around the globe. She's a professional plant-human matchmaker and bonafide plant geek, with a degree in botany and over 30 years of experience teaching and writing about herbalism, medicine making, and organic herb cultivation. Juliet’s lifelong captivation with medicinal weeds and herb gardening has birthed many botanical enterprises over the decades, including an herbal nursery and a farm-to-apothecary herbal products business. 

These days, she channels her botanical obsession through her writing and photography in her online programs, on her personal blog Castanea, and in her new book, The Healing Garden: Cultivating and Handcrafting Herbal Remedies. Juliet and her family reside in a home overrun with houseplants and books in Asheville, North Carolina.

Meghan Gemma of Chestnut School of Herbal Medicine.

MEGHAN GEMMA is one of  Chestnut School of Herbal Medicine's primary instructors through her written lessons, sharing herbal and wild foods wisdom from the flowery heart of the school to an ever-wider field of herbalists, gardeners, healers, and plant lovers.

She began her journey with the Chestnut School in 2010—as an intern and manager at the Chestnut Herb Nursery and then as a plant-smitten student “back in the day” when the school’s programs were taught in the field, and later she became part of the school’s writing team. Meghan lives in the Ivy Creek watershed, just north of Asheville, North Carolina.

Sarah Sorci of Sweet Flag Herbs.

SARAH SORCI is an herbal educator, writer, and the founder of Sweet Flag Herbs. She loves supporting folks who seek connection, empowerment, and environmental sustainability by connecting with plants. Through her writing project, A Nourishing Harvest, Sarah explores environmental contamination issues that affect gardeners and foragers, translating scientific data into practical free articles. She also creates beautiful educational boxes that facilitate ancestral connection by way of the plant world.

Sarah has offered hundreds of classes and plant walks throughout Western New York and beyond. Sarah worked on the student services team at Chestnut School of Herbal Medicine, and she’s contributed course content to Herbal Academy. Follow Sarah on Instagram @sweetflagherbs.

Interested in becoming a contributor?

 

© Chestnut School of Herbal Medicine and chestnutherbs.com, 2011-2024. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this site’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Chestnut School of Herbal Medicine and chestnutherbs.com with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

This article is a sneak peek into our 375-hour
Online Foraging Course: Edible and Medicinal Wild Herbs!

This groundbreaking program is THE most comprehensive online course on the topic of harvesting wild medicinals and edible weeds.

Are you intrigued with the idea of foraging but intimidated by where to start?

Gain confidence with our Online Foraging Course!

The course begins with the basic ground rules of foraging safety and ethics, and then moves on to botany and plant identification. Before you know it, you’ll have the skills and confidence to safely identify and harvest wild plants.

You’ll befriend THE most common edible and medicinal wayside plants, including dandelion, stinging nettles, violet, yarrow, burdock, rose, goldenrod, and many others. The printable manual is hundreds of pages long and filled with close-up photos for identification, medicinal uses, and loads of easy-to-follow recipes. In fact, most of our plant profiles contain more detail than you’ll find in any book on wild foods and herbs.

Registration for the Foraging Course is currently closed,
but all of the content from this course is also included in our 1000 hour Herbal Immersion Program.

Sign up for free tutorials (videos + articles) on Foraging and herbal medicine, and to be notified when enrollment reopens.

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Looking for more blog articles about foraging?

We’ve stocked up all the resources you need to begin your foraging adventures safely and wisely. Tools, field guides, harvesting ethics, and a primer on sustainable wildcrafting are all requisite. Browse our library of resources to start foraging on the right foot!

Ready to build your botanical bookshelf?

Check out our Favorite Herbalism Books Hub. We’re happy to present seven special reading lists that highlight our personal picks. There are selections for every kind of plant person: beginning herbalists, advanced and clinical herbalists, herb gardeners, foragers, medicine makers, and budding aromatherapists.

26 thoughts on “The Best Books on Foraging Wild Foods and Herbs

  1. I was a little surprised not to see Euell Gibbons on your list. Wasn’t he one of the pioneers of foraging with his books, Stalking the Wild Asparagus and Stalking the Blue-eyed Scallop?

    • There are a lot of great foraging books that couldn’t make it onto this short list, but Euell Gibbons likely influenced some of these authors! Thanks for posting, Bev.

  2. Hi there! Love your site, thanks for sharing such great stuff! I do need a bit of advice, if you don’t mind. I’m trying to get started on foraging, but I live in France. All the best book recommendations, including yours, are for the US. I’m curious if the location doesn’t matter as much as the hardiness zones do (although that sounds like a stupid question as I’m sure there are different plants growing in different locations)? In France we’re in Zone 8. I’m so ready to pull the trigger and order a bunch of wonderful foraging books but I’m really quite stuck due to my location. Do you know if US books like your own would be applicable to Europe? And if not, do you know of any titles that would be applicable to France and Switzerland? Many thanks!

    • Sarah Sorci says:

      Glad you’re enjoying blog Castanea, Steph! Most of the book descriptions mention that they’ll be applicable for most of the temperate world–I see this noted for numbers 2, 5, 6, 8, 9, and 10 on the list. I hope you enjoy exploring the plants in your region!

  3. I’ve recently become interested in foraging and am glad I found this book list. I LOVE the images on this post and really appreciate how clean your layout is. (I wish every blog had such helpful content, was easy to read, and didn’t spam us all too death. Can I get an Amen?!?) Keep up the great work, guys. I really love what you are up to.

  4. I’m wondering if it matters where you live? I started searching for books that specify midwest plants but I didn’t know if it mattered?

    • It’s a great idea to confirm that a foraging book will be relevant where you live. This book list should be really applicable for a mid-westerner!

  5. Justin Baker says:

    Great list! Have you checked out Samuel Thayer’s most recent book; “Incredible Wild Edibles”? I’m glad his other two made your list!
    Wanted to drop you a note about another book I recently found; “The Lost Book of Herbal Remedies”, by Claude Davis & Dr. Nicole Apelian. I just ran across this recently and have found it to be a wonderful compilation of old fashioned remedies put through modern science. When I watched the video that Dr. Apelian did on it, I was hooked! I bought three more copies for Christmas/Solstice presents this year! See her full video here: http://triabicia.com/2gX7
    Thank you for posting!
    -Justin Baker

    • I came here to post Eat Mesquite and More! There’s an abundance of wild food in the Sonoran Desert. As someone from the Pacific Northwest, I’ve been so intrigued and excited to learn about all these southwestern edibles that were not on my radar even a year ago! I think it’s important that more Southwest plants be promoted as foraging opportunities. The desert isn’t just sand and sagebrush, It’s full of life and tasty food!

    • Christine Borosh says:

      We’re not familiar with books on these topics in German, but I’d recommend connecting with local foragers or herbalists in your area to see if they have any recommendations. Good luck!

  6. Kendall Keller says:

    Hello! Are there any books on tree identification and their medicinal uses? Also, do any of your programs touch on medicine making with trees?

    • Christine Borosh says:

      I’m not familiar with one book specifically on this topic. Some of these books will include trees along with other herbs and wild foods. In our Herbal Immersion Program, we cover a few trees and shrubs – mimosa, elderberry, and vitex. We hope that you’ll join us!

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