After learning about wild foods from his mom, an avid forager herself, Bob Krumm spent time in various parts of North America learning about wild berries and other edibles. At the four regions covered by his books, he amassed recipes from the local inhabitants and is sharing them with you. Each short chapter covers a different berry producing plant or covers groups of related plants like, for instance, “all wild rose hip producing plants”, or “all gooseberries”.
Chapters start out with his personal experiences and reminiscences. On occasion he shares insights on gathering and processing berries. Bob does his own color photography which is quite good. The photographs are found grouped together at the center of each book – an expense saving technique that I find inconvenient for the reader who has to leaf back and forth. Two photographs are given for almost all plants he covers – a close up of flowers, and a close up of the berries. This flower/berry combo is something more books should offer.’Wild Berries of the West’ and the ‘Alaska Wild Berry Guide’, both in our Plant Identification section, do some of this flower/berry photography. Had Krumm included more plants, and more leaf and stem structures in his photos, his books would be in the Plant Identification section. All four are in this cookbook section because the recipes, in my opinion, are the predominant feature of these books. If you use the information from both Bob’s experiences and the sometimes expanded recipes you can learn a lot here. What you want in any good wild berry cook book are gathering and processing tips, techniques and pitfalls that help you make the best berry preparations for use in any recipes they give.
These books do not cover lots of plants. The New England book covers 13 at the low end and the Great Lakes book covers 22 plants at the high end. But these books are good, clean, quaint, and useful. Any of them would make a great gift – primarily as inexpensive cookbooks, but also as and aid to plant identification.
Order a copy of Rocky Mountain Berry Book Amazon
Order a copy of Great Lakes Berry Book Amazon
Order a copy of New England Berry Book Amazon
Order a copy of Pacific Northwest Berry Book Amazon