What do you think?
Rate this book
Free Food: Wild Plants and How to Eat Them
Whether you live in a city or in the countryside, a world of amazing, diverse wild food is at your doorstep. Not only is wild food free and sustainable; it is also jam-packed with nutrients and flavour beyond anything you will find in a supermarket.
In Free For All, award-winning author and forager Mo Wilde explains how to identify the plants, seaweeds, nuts and spices that are safe (and delicious) to eat, including foraging staples like wild garlic and lesser-known herbs like the fragrant sweet cicely. Organised into plant families, it gives you the tools to develop a deeper understanding of a plant’s visual cues and their place in the ecosystem.
Once you have identified the plants, Wilde also describes ways you can eat them, whether that’s making jams from wild berries or gluten-free flour from roots and nuts. The possibilities go on. You can deep-fry hogweed tempura; top your dishes with cow parsley; create a wild pantry of herbal infusions, spices and fermented drinks, and even tap beech trees for their sap.
Gorgeously illustrated, Free for All will awaken your sense of wonder. Whatever your lifestyle – whether you are an enthusiastic forager or simply curious about wild food – this book will inspire you to get outside and re-connect with nature.
In Free For All, award-winning author and forager Mo Wilde explains how to identify the plants, seaweeds, nuts and spices that are safe (and delicious) to eat, including foraging staples like wild garlic and lesser-known herbs like the fragrant sweet cicely. Organised into plant families, it gives you the tools to develop a deeper understanding of a plant’s visual cues and their place in the ecosystem.
Once you have identified the plants, Wilde also describes ways you can eat them, whether that’s making jams from wild berries or gluten-free flour from roots and nuts. The possibilities go on. You can deep-fry hogweed tempura; top your dishes with cow parsley; create a wild pantry of herbal infusions, spices and fermented drinks, and even tap beech trees for their sap.
Gorgeously illustrated, Free for All will awaken your sense of wonder. Whatever your lifestyle – whether you are an enthusiastic forager or simply curious about wild food – this book will inspire you to get outside and re-connect with nature.
315 pages, Kindle Edition
Published March 27, 2025
2 people are currently reading
50 people want to read
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 of 1 review
April 5, 2025
Wilde's book is an accessible primer to foraging in the UK, spanning the technical aspects of plant identification to ways of using foraged plants in everyday life—turning conkers into soap and sage into hair dyes are only some of FREE FOOD's intriguing tips. Wilde's enthusiasm for this subject is infectious, as are the way her descriptions bring her often obscure ingredients to life (the spicy seaweed pepper dulse, when incorrectly prepared, will apparently leave your house "smelling of tear gas at an XR rally"), and the book helpfully comes with diagrams and informational tables for foragers to refer to.
However, I'll also note that the book has a rather odd textual detail that slipped through editing: a sentence about the antimicrobial properties of birch ("A Finnish fisherman [...] back to port") is repeated in its entirety on pages 181 and 272.
However, I'll also note that the book has a rather odd textual detail that slipped through editing: a sentence about the antimicrobial properties of birch ("A Finnish fisherman [...] back to port") is repeated in its entirety on pages 181 and 272.
Displaying 1 of 1 review