Urban Foraging: Find, Gather, and Cook 50 Wild Plants

Herbalist Rose (Midwest Medicinal Plants) shares in this encyclopedic outing tips for city-dwellers looking to forage edible plants. Each plant profile includes details about when and how to harvest, plus recommendations for uses. Rose covers common fare such as apples and mint, as well as lesser-known varieties, including hyssop (a “classic” cold remedy) and daylilies (which “can be stuffed with a soft cheese... then fried in butter like stuffed squash blossoms”). There’s a recipe for each plant, among them mugwort bitters, autumn olive BBQ sauce, and wild garlic flatbreads. Rose cautions against searching along railroad tracks, as they’re “known to be high in arsenic, which can be absorbed into plants,” and advises that it’s important to know what one is eating, since “poisoning is both possible and a drag,” though, unfortunately, the work is light on identification tips. Seasoned gatherers will find plenty of clever tricks, though, and Rose skillfully mixes anecdotes with fast facts about everyday plants—“Japanese knotweed is at the top of nearly all invasive-plant Most Wanted lists,” for example. Home cooks ready to branch out will find this a resource worth returning to. (Aug.)