Last week Hank Shaw posted this piece on The Atlantic Food Channel about his favorite books for foragers. It’s an excellent list of must-reads for anyone interested in wild edible plants and mushrooms.

Here are a few more books that I’d recommend adding to your library.

Two of my all-time favorite mushroom guides are 100 Edible Mushrooms by Michael Kuo and Edible Wild Mushrooms of Illinois and Surrounding States: A Field-to-Kitchen Guide by Joe McFarland and Gregory M. Mueller. The later is absolutely essential for mushroom hunting in Illinois, Missouri, Wisconsin, Iowa, Indiana, or Kentucky.

For plants, I like The Forager’s Harvest: A Guide to Identifying, Harvesting, and Preparing Edible Wild Plants by Samuel Thayer. Unlike a lot of wild food guides out there, Thayer avoids recycling common misinformation about edible plants. Plus, he focuses on plants that actually taste good – no survival food here!

Do you have a favorite foraging guide? Leave your recommendation as a comment!

Image courtesy of tonx via a Creative Commons license.