Wild Seasons: Gathering and Cooking Wild Plants of the Great Plains - Softcover

Young, Kay

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0803299044 ISBN 13: 9780803299047

Publisher: University of Nebraska Press, 1993

Synopsis

For nature lovers as well as cooks, there's plenty to whet the appetite in this unique field guide-cum-cookbook. Starting with the first plants ready for eating in the early spring (watercress and nettles) and following the sequence of harvest through the late fall (persim-mons and Jerusalem artichokes), Kay Young offers full, easy-to-follow directions for identifying, gathering, and preparing some four dozen edible wild plants of the Great Plains. And since most of the plants occur elsewhere as well, residents of other regions will find much of interest here.

 

'This is not a survival book," writes the author; "only those plants whose flavor and availability warrant the time and effort to collect or grow them are included." The nearly 250 recipes range from old-time favorites (poke sallet; catnip tea; horehound lozenges; hickory nut cake; a cupboardful of jams, jellies, and pies) to enticing new creations (wild violet salad, milkweed sandwiches, cattail pollen pancakes, day-lily hors d'oeuvres, prickly-pear cactus relish).

 

Reflecting the author's conviction that just as we can never go back to subsisting wholly on wild things, neither should we exclude them from our lives, this book serves up generous portions of botanical information and ecological wisdom along with good food.

About this title

About the Author

Trained in botany and folklore, Kay Young is a naturalist for the Chet Ager Nature Center in Lincoln, Nebraska. Mark E. Marcuson, who also lives in Lincoln, formerly worked as an illustrator for the Nebraska State Museum and is now a freelance artist.

From the Back Cover

For nature lovers as well as cooks, there's plenty to whet the appetite in this unique field guide-cum-cookbook. Starting with the first plants ready for eating in the early spring and following the sequence of harvest through the late fall, Kay Young offers full, easy-to-follow directions for identifying, gathering, and preparing some four dozen edible wild plants of the Great Plains.

Edition details

• Publisher: University of Nebraska Press
• Publication date: 1993
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0803299044
• ISBN 13: 9780803299047
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 318