Foraging Compendium
- Product number: 812343.1
Impressive
The Wild Foraging Compendium has the subtitle 'the complete edible flora of the Low Countries'. Marion de Kort has spared no effort in compiling a truly impressive book, in which you can look up whether almost every plant is edible and what its distinctive constituents are. Wonderful!
Complete
The subtitle might have been better as 'the complete (in)edible flora of the Low Countries'. Because all plants are included, even those you'd better not eat. In the Netherlands, there are almost 3,900 plant species, of which 1581 are vascular plants, 970 are green algae, 623 are mosses, and 720 are other plants. If we quickly count the index by Latin name in this book, we come to about 45 columns of 45 names = 2025 items. De Kort herself states that she focuses on land plants (vascular plants) and has not exhaustively included algae. So, you could say that it is indeed 'the complete flora'. And thus a compendium = an all-encompassing whole.
Not a Field Guide
However, the book is not a field guide with which you can determine which plant you have found. Nor is it a medical handbook for naturopaths. And it is also not a cookbook with ready-made recipes. But it shows for each plant species which active bioactive substances it contains (phytonutrients), whether you can (therefore) eat the plant, and how you can then use the plant. And more.
About the author
Marion de Kort previously translated the originally German-language Eetbare Wilde Planten (Edible Wild Plants), an extremely useful book for recognizing the two hundred most common edible plants and seeing what you can do with them. De Kort works meticulously; she translated and reworded, removed alpine plants, and supplemented it with coastal plants. This meticulousness is also reflected in this compendium.
In short
At the back are two indices: one by Latin name and one by Dutch name. And – hurray! – two bookmark ribbons. This makes it an indispensable book for anyone who wants to eat more or less from nature. Period.
(slightly adapted text by Norbert Mergen)
- Specification: door Marion de Kort
- Function: N/A
