Top Ten Foraging Books
Over the years we have accumulated a bit of a library of foraging related books, they sit on our wall of book shelves alongside various other books about cooking, fermenting, vegetable growing and a myriad of other outdoor and food related things. Some of these books are now looking rather well-loved as they have been transported around the country and dragged outside in all weathers, usually during one of our foraging courses when we stop to talk about onward learning following the course. These dog-eared volumes, rather than the pristine but dusty, are our most recommended titles for furthering your knowledge about foraging for wild food. If you are more into finding food from the beach then we also have coastal foraging book recommendations.
The books below are only intended as a guide – we would of course recommend that the best way to learn is to come along on a day with an experienced foraging guide.
Books for identification
Foraging requires you to recognise the plant or mushroom which you are looking at and confidently identify it as being a particular species, at the most basic level if you cannot identify what you re looking at then you shouldn’t be putting it in your mouth. The books listed below are very good for identifying plants and fungi, but they contain very limited (if any) information about edibility; some may denote toxic species with a symbol, but they err on the side of caution. After all, they exist so that people can identify the species, not so that they can learn the best way to serve said species.
The Wildflower Key - Francis Rose
The first step with any kind of plant identification is knowing how to identify it by the visual cues – the shape, colour, size and so on. This comprehensive guide (relevant particularly to Britain and Ireland, but of some relevance in Northern Europe too) is considered to be the ideal bridge between a technical guide for botanists and the keen amateur.
Wildflowers of Britain and Europe - Podlech and Lippert
It may seem like we are cheating by having two wild flower keys in this list, but this is one of my favourite ‘field’ guides, in a size and style perfect for throwing into a bag or rucksack ‘just in case’. It separates the plants by the colour of their flowers, making it easy to quickly jump to the section you need.
Collins Complete Guide to British Mushrooms and Toadstools - Paul Sterry
The ‘Collins Complete Guide to…’ series of books are proving themselves to be useful time and again. This mushroom identification book covers over 1200 different species and includes good quality full colour digital photographs of each mushroom, what’s more they depict the mushroom in it’s natural habitat, a really important factor when it comes to identifying different species. Hunting for mushrooms can be very simple and safe, as long as you stick to a few key species. However there is a world of subtlety and minor differences between species, and if you want to really get into your mushroom and fungi identification you need an excellent reference guide – just like this.
Mushrooms - Roger Phillips
A very important and frequently referenced book about mushrooms. Roger Phillips was a mushroom expert in the UK and although some of the classifications in this book have changed, it is worthwhile picking up a copy to have at home as a reference as it is mentioned in many more modern titles. It has full and detailed photographs of over 1,250 mushrooms and other fungi, laid out in a grid that makes them easy to find and compare.
Collins complete guide to British Trees
A comprehensive guide to the trees which you will find most commonly in the UK, not only those accepted as native but also naturalised, ornamental and cultivated species – particularly useful for the urban forager.
Foraging guides
The books listed below are a selection of quality books which are about foraging and how to use different species of plant and fungi. These are a mixed bag, some are more recipe books, whilst a couple are a combination of basic species identification and usage, but without any sort of key or much information about lookalike species (unless they happen to be toxic!)
Hedgerow - John Wright (River Cottage handbook series)
From the excellent River Cottage Handbook Series, this book focuses on the most common edible plants you are likely to find along paths and tracks, field edges and woodlands. It is not only a reliable and easily followed foraging guidebook but it is also witty, entertaining and good enough to sit down and read like a novel.
Mushrooms - John Wright (River Cottage handbook series)
Although it doesn’t have the range and details of Roger Philips’ book, this volume of the River Cottage Handbook Series is smaller (rucksack sized), easier to follow and contains good photos, descriptions and information on the most common edible mushrooms and fungi in the UK. A good field guide, and an entertaining read too.
Edible Mushrooms - Geoff Dann
First published in 2017, this book is one of our more modern reference guides for foraging and was written with the focus placed entirely on foraging for mushrooms. This book is really an identification guide aimed at foragers which contains all known edible species of mushroom alongside their lookalikes, it goes into detail about exactly how edible/poisonous each species is based upon the author’s personal experience and that of others.
A Cook on the Wild Side - Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall
Before River Cottage we had a Cook On The Wild Side, with chef Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall (Hugh Fearlessly Eats-it-all as he was once dubbed) where he travelled around the UK in a Land Rover and a narrow boat, cooking with foraged items. This is the accompanying recipe book, and is probably the best foraging recipe book available – despite the fact it is out of print.
The Forager's Calendar - John Wright
This is a great book, well written and laid out and containing recipes for each species listed. My favourite feature of this book is that it can help with planning foraging trips if you are looking to target a particular species or when just getting started with foraging as each species is listed within it’s peak month.