Foraging by Paul Chambers

Last Updated on Wednesday, 31 August 2011 19:52 Written by Scotty Tuesday, 30 August 2011 23:22

Many bushcrafters and outdoorsmen will have at least a passing familiarity with the art of foraging, whether that be as simple as gathering blackberries or heading outdoors to regularly supplement your meals with the wild greens, roots and fruits available around us.
However, unless you’re an expert botanist in the making, the chances are you’re knowledge is not as full as it could be (I know mine isn’t) and if you’re serious about foraging you’re really going to need a field guide that tells you what to eat, where to find it and how best to cook it!

 You may well have encountered the considerable literature that has already been written about Britain’s edible plants. Richard Mabey’s Food For Free and Roger Phillips’ Wild Food are amongst the most popular, and any forager is likely to be well acquainted with them, but they are not ideal as field guides, being large and cumbersome or lacking clear photographs.

Foraging by Paul Chambers is aimed at both the beginner and intermediate level, but the author’s background is in natural history and many of the species he discusses in the book include sections on their historical uses and notes from the scientific community so I think even the seasoned forager could draw some enjoyment and perhaps learn something new from the book.

In Foraging, Paul Chambers notes that foraging guides are often structured alphabetically or by family (as in Ray Mears Wild Food) which is fine if you want to look up a wild edible you suspect you may have happened upon, but for beginners often they will not know where to begin. Paul Chambers remedies this by structuring his chapters around various natural environments in which the Forager is apt to find food:

 Garden and Urban
Hedgerows and Meadows
Woodlands and Forests
Grasslands and Heath
Wetlands and Streams
The Coastal Fringe
Seaweeds

The downside of this is that of course some plants are liable to be found in more than one environment, so he places them according to where they are most likely to be found. The contents page also usefully delineates the species (including their Latin names) that are to be found under each chapter, covering in all around a hundred of the most widespread and edible plant species in the UK.

The book opens with an introduction to foraging, gathering and identification techniques, how to prepare and store your bounty, and the legalities surrounding the gathering of wild plants. This is useful and interesting information that is concise enough not to bore you. It’s followed by the field guide proper, which I have to say is very well laid out. Each individual plant species has an entry devoted to it that offers information on its botanical attributes, distribution, details on how to prepare and cook it, a summary of historical and medicinal uses and lastly notes from the scientific community. This offers a broad wealth of information on each species that will appeal to not just the forager, but also the amateur botanist and natural historian. The scientific notes are particularly revealing, for example, the entry for Comfrey (Symphytum officinale) reveals that laboratory trials suggest excessive consumption could lead to serious health concerns and have ‘led some people to class comfrey as a poisonous plant’, which is interesting as I have seen this cited in other books on the subject as an edible plant without reference to these pretty alarming findings!

Most entries are accompanied by a full colour photograph. These are mostly clear but some of the photos are not ideal for trying to discern certain identifying features. This highlights one of the caveats of the book which Chambers himself identifies in his introduction. This is NOT a plant ID book and nor does it pretend to be. It should only be used in conjunction with a proper ID book, and as with any wild food, cross-referencing should always be made across multiple sources to ensure correct identification is made before consumption.

A great feature at the back of the book is the ‘Foragers Calendar’. This documents which time of year is best to forage for the featured plant species, separating each species out into one of the four seasons, with their corresponding page number listed alongside it.

Overall, the great layout, mostly clear (and full colour) photos, the natural history/cultural angle and the efforts Chambers has gone to research what the scientific community has to say about the species featured make this a laudable entry into the literature; a clear and informative book that deserves a place on any would-be forager’s shelf.

You can pick it up on Amazon for about £10 posted.