Forage. Gather. Feast.: 100+ Recipes from West Coast Forests, Shores, and Urban Spaces

by Maria Finn

Celebrate the pleasure of the wilderness (or even your backyard) with this approachable forage-to-kitchen cookbook featuring 110 recipes using foragable foods—from seaweed love to mushroom lust and everything in between.

Identify foragable foods in your own backyard to create simple, rustic recipes from the bounty of the coast, forest, and urban spaces up and down the West Coast.

Featuring more than 100 recipes and chock-full of lush photography, this cookbook shows you what to do with the delicious foodstuffs you can dig, snip, or catch anywhere from Alaska to Northern California, then put it all together in homecooked meals best shared with friends and gorgeous sunset views or cooked in the wild over a campfire.

Recipes

Reimagine your cooking and unlock new flavors from the abundance that surrounds us.

Genres: Cookbooks

304 pages, Paperback

Published April 9, 2024

Reviews

[Heather · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is about making use of the wealth of edible ingredients that can be found in the wilds of the West Coast. At first glance, I can tell you that I love the cover! It's like a charcuterie board of foraged goodies! You can smell the earthiness of the foraged mushrooms and the saltiness of the oysters; taste the sweet citrusy bite of blood orange.

This book guides you into the woods and to the water's edge for an adventure with purpose. It helps you see delicacies hanging over the sidewalk or slipping through the cracks. Harvesting wild food is an unscripted experience that requires us to follow nature's rhythms of tides and seasons, rain and dry spells. If we do this, she gives us incredible, nutritious food for free.

The author suggests that foraging is a great stress-reliever from daily life and a great way to come to know yourself, and to share your newly-discovered self with others over the meals you craft from your wild findings.

Due to the nature of this book, it is inherently vegetarian and pescatarian. Proteins are sourced naturally, and recipes include nothing like chicken or beef or other farmed livestock.

There are three chapters:

-- The Coast with recipes like Fire-Roasted Butter Clams with Seafood Gremolata, Dungeness Crab Boil, and includes a DIY for how to make your own Sea Salt.
-- The Forest with recipes like Fire-Roasted Kabocha Squash with Chanterelles, Wild King Salmon Bellies with Roasted Morels and Peaches, and Pine Scones with Huckleberries.
-- The Edge and Urban Foraging includes recipes like White Bean Stew with Stinging Nettles and Oyster Mushrooms, Rose Hips and Apple Jam, and a DIY for Rose Petal Honey.

The cookbook's recipes use foraged ingredients like crabs, clams, oysters, various seaweeds, wild mushrooms, flowers, pinecones, berries, herbs, ferns and various greens. It provides instruction on how to catch crab, find bivalves, and harvest seaweed. There are a few Seasonal Menus at the end of the book to inspire you to host a seasonal party, or perhaps a Campfire Brunch with recipes like:

Elderflower French 75
Pine Scones with Huckleberries
Herby Mushroom Leek Toasts
Spruce Tip and Juniper Berry Sockeye Salmon Gravlax on bagels and cream cheese
Campfire Dashi-Poached Eggs with Vegetable Hash
Flaming Pine Needle Mussels
Bay Laurel Nut Hot Cocoa
Chilled Huckleberries with Campfire Caramel and Seaweed Salt


My final word:

I lived in the Pacific Northwest for several years in the '90s and consider it my second home. I fell in love with the area while living there with a military husband. This cookbook is reminiscent of the West Coast and the time I spent wandering the forests looking to identify edibles. I love the pictures. I love what this cookbook aspires to be. The thing that holds me back is the feeling that the recipes are somewhat unattainable. As the author says in her introduction...

"The recipes are simple yet the ingredients a bit esoteric. Some you may be able to find seasonally at the farmer's market or grocery store, but the fun is in finding your own patches of rose hips and huckleberries."

It's not that the recipes are overly-complicated or filled with hard-to-find ingredients, but they feel like they are more well-suited for a gastronomist. A little amuse bouche that you find off-menu at a five-star restaurant. But I love the endeavor, and the heart and soul of this book, and I recommend it for the hard-core food crafters who are always looking for something new to try, or those who live in areas of the West Coast with lots of areas in which to forage. Beautiful photography and ambitious.

[Annie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Originally posted on my blog Nonstop Reader.

is an accessible and beautifully photographed tutorial and recipe guide by Maria Finn. Released 9th April 2024 by Sasquatch Books, it's 304 pages and is available in paperback and ebook formats.

This guide is divided into two main sections. The first, a thorough primer aimed at the western areas of the USA including the coast, gives readers a capsule survey of identifying and responsible and safe foraging wild foods from the coast, forests, and other areas including suburban and urban. The second part of the book includes numerous recipes featuring the wild foods gathered.

Foraging guides include seafood items, seaweed, mushrooms, pine items, fiddleheads, greens, berries, and flowes. The recipes are varied and quite fancy with artistic presentation and aesthetic. It's not a strictly plant based cookbook, there are seafood items like clams, prawns, and other seafood included.

Recipes include an introduction, bullet list of ingredients, and step by step preparation instructions. Ingredient measures are provided in imperial (American) units only. Many of the ingredients will require both foraged items and access to a well stocked specialist grocer.

Many (but not all) of the recipes are accompanied by full color photos, including preparation pictures. The photos are a high point of the book, and serving suggestions are very attractive and well styled.

Four stars. This would be an excellent choice for public library acquisition, home use, for smallholders and self sufficiency folks, and for gift giving.

Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.

[The Sassy Bookworm · Rating 4 out of 5]

Book Review: Forage. Gather. Feast. by Maria Finn

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Maria Finn's Forage. Gather. Feast. is a delightful ode to the abundance of nature, offering a tantalizing glimpse into the world of foraging along the West Coast. With over 100 recipes that celebrate the flavors of the wilderness, this cookbook seamlessly blends the thrill of exploration with the comforts of home cooking.

Finn's emphasis on foraging safely and responsibly sets the tone for a journey into the bountiful landscapes of forests, shores, and urban spaces. While the book's primary focus is on the West Coast, its principles can easily be applied to foraging adventures worldwide. The inclusion of recipes like "Flaming Pine Needle Mussels" and "Grilled Porcini on Rosemary Skewers with Porcini Butter" showcases Finn's creativity and culinary expertise.

One of the standout features of Forage. Gather. Feast. is its stunning photography, which not only enhances the visual appeal of the book but also serves as a source of inspiration for readers. The lush images of ingredients sourced from nature evoke a sense of connection to the land and its offerings, making this cookbook a feast for the eyes as well as the palate.

Whether you're a seasoned forager or a novice in the world of wild foods, Maria Finn's cookbook is sure to ignite your culinary imagination and expand your appreciation for the flavors that surround us. Forage. Gather. Feast. is not just a collection of recipes; it's a celebration of the beauty and bounty of nature, waiting to be explored and savored. This book is a perfect gift for anyone looking to unlock new flavors and embark on a delicious journey through the wilds of the West Coast and beyond.

⚠️This review was written based on personal opinions and experiences with the book. Individual preferences may vary⚠️

[Brenda · Rating 4 out of 5]

Forage. Gather. Feast. by Maria Finn is a lovely book about what it means to forage, how to forage (including safety and best practices), connecting with nature, benefits of spending time outdoors and enjoying foraged food. Over one hundred recipes are included. Many dishes have more than one component so you can prepare the entire dish as written or just parts. The foraging focus is on the United States but I live outside the US and find the information relevant. I like the seaside foraging section as this is often excluded.

My greatest passion is foraging, especially for mushrooms and white truffles in Croatia. What is more fulfilling than being immersed in the outdoors, identifying and collecting food and preparing it with your heart? If you're the tiniest bit intrigued by foraging or forage already, be inspired by the recipe ideas.

I love to cook and bake and am excited about the wonderful recipes here, some of which are unique and unusual, my wheelhouse. Amongst those I anticipate the most include Seaweed Butter from Scratch, Steamed Clams with Pea Shoots and Green Garlic, Wild Berry Mignonette, Mushroom Pâté with Wine-Soaked Walnuts, Porcini Butter, Hedgehog Mushroom Dumpling Soup with Chrysanthemum Greens, Pickled Pine/Spruce Tips, Stinging Nettle Gnocchi with Brown-Butter Black Trumpets, and Berry and Peony Pavlova. As I have celiac, I will adjust recipes for my needs.

My sincere thank you to Sasquatch Books and NetGalley for providing me with a digital copy of this delectable book.

[Alicia Bayer · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a lovely gourmet cookbook for foragers in the Pacific Northwest. There are photos for most recipes and some foraging information for seafood like clams and prawns, seaweed, edible flowers like elderflowers and cherry blossoms, fruit like lumquots, greens like stinging nettles and sorrel, and lots of west coast mushrooms, among other wild foods. There is no nutritional information and recipes are not organized by season (something that can be helpful in foraging or gardening cookbooks).

The recipes reminded me of something you’d get a tiny, beautiful serving of for a small fortune at a gourmet restaurant, not something I would necessarily cook myself. There is also a lot of wheat and sugar in her recipes, which doesn’t work for most of my family. I do forage some of the same wild foods in my Minnesota home like black walnuts, oyster mushrooms, elderflowers and nettles, but I don’t have access to at least one foraged ingredient in most of these recipes. It will be great for those from the area who really want to make impressive dishes.

I read a digital ARC of this book for review.

[Marisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Forage. Gather. Feast. Is a lovely book filled with information on foraging safely along with more than 100 recipes. While the author focuses on foraging along the West Coast, this book will appeal to those in other regions. And if your idea of foraging is at the farmers market, you'll still enjoy the recipes featured in this book. Some of the recipes that interest me are sea salt (made from sea water), sautéed mushrooms with soba and miso, candied pine cones, wilted greens, wild onions and fiddlehead ferns, preserved lemons, and salt-fermented blueberries. Most of the recipes in this book are vegetarian but there is a section about the coast featuring seaweed but also small sea creatures.

Thank you to the publisher for the digital copy of this book in exchange for my honest review.

[Ashlyn Cox · Rating 3 out of 5]

This one was a pretty book, with recipes that at least looked good.

However, there are very few recipes that I would actually use due to availability of ingredients in my area (I'm from Texas, so most of the foraging sections aren't even relevant to me). If you are in the Pacific Northwest, it may be more than just pretty for you

[Jessica Hembree · Rating 4 out of 5]

While I am located on the east coast, I'm originally from further west. I love the information in this book in regard to foraging and sourcing ingredients. I particularly like the recipes for seaweed pasta and the mushroom shortbread cookies. The photos are lovely as well! Can’t wait to try some of these dishes.