My Favorite Books
There are many other great plant and mushroom books aside from the ones listed below, these are just some of my favorites. You can find all of my book recommendations on my Forage Colorado Amazon Page, and if you're looking for out of print books check out AbeBooks!
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The Forager's Harvest, Nature's Garden, and Incredible Wild Edibles by Samuel Thayer are, in my opinion, the best resources for edible plants around North America. If you're new to foraging plants these books should be your first ones! Available on Forager's Harvest and Amazon.
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Backyard Foraging, The Wildcrafted Cocktail, and The Forager's Pantry by Ellen Zachos are all really excellent and fun books! The second is a must for anyone interested in creating cocktails from foraged ingredients! Available on Backyard Forager and Amazon.
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Botany In a Day by Thomas Elpel is a really well done crash course on botany. If you want to understand what it means when someone says, "plants in the Brassicaceae family can be characterized by cruciferous flowers with four sepals and six stamens, four tall and two short" then you should pick up this book! Available on Forager's Harvest and Amazon.
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Foraging the Mountain West by Thomas Elpel is a great option for anyone looking for a more local option. He covers all sorts of species that can be found around Colorado and the surrounding states. Available here on Amazon.
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Mountain States Foraging and Mountain States Medicinal Plants by Briana Wiles are also some lovely books that cover plants more local to the Colorado and Rocky Mountain region. Briana owns the Rooted Apothecary shops in Crested Butte and Gunnison, CO. Her books are available on Rooted Apothecary and Amazon.
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Survival Plants Vol. 1 and 2 by Cattail Bob Seebeck are great books that are loaded with information about plants in Colorado and the southern Rockies. They are self-published by Bob and only available on his website. They're expensive, I was hesitant to get them right away because of this, but the price is definitely worth it! You'll spend hours reading about all the plants in them. Go here to purchase Survival Plants.
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Best-Tasting Wild Plants of Colorado and the Rockies is another great book by Cattail Bob Seebeck, but unfortunately it seems to be out of print and expensive to get a copy of. You can occasionally find a good deal on Amazon, and you might also try looking on AbeBooks.
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Mushrooms of the Rocky Mountain Region by Vera Stucky Evenson is the best mycology book for Colorado. It does lack some notes on edibility, but that doesn't take away from the great information within. The first edition, Mushrooms of Colorado and the Southern Rocky Mountains, has slightly better notes on edibility but is out of print and thus more expensive. Available on Amazon.
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The Essential Guide to Rocky Mountain Mushrooms by Habitat by Cathy Cripps, Vera Evenson, and Michael Kuo is my second favorite mushroom book for Colorado. Categorizing our mushroom species by habitat is a nice way to learn them and this book does have a few notes about edibility. Available on Amazon.
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All that The Rain Promises and More... and Mushrooms Demystified by David Arora are the best general mushroom books. The former being a wonderful little pocket guide for many of our species that includes good notes on edibility. The latter is the opposite; a veritable mushroom encyclopedia. Available on Amazon.
As a note, the amazon links are affiliate links. It doesn't cost you anything extra, but I get a tiny portion for sending you there.
Websites and PAges
Here are a list of other websites and pages that I follow and think are valuable! I'm sure there are plenty of great online resources that I'm missing so if you find one that you think I would appreciate send it my way!
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My friend Erica runs a great foraging website and Facebook page called Wild Food Girl. She is local to Colorado and offers the occasional foraging class. I have been to a few of her classes and highly recommend them!
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The above mentioned author, Ellen Zachos also has a great website and Facebook page called The Backyard Forager. She has some wonderful recipes and really great information!
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If you're interested in learning more about mushrooms and especially morels, look no further than Modern Forager! Trent and Kristen have some great stuff on their website and Page, but the piece de resistance are their curated Burn Maps! The small fee is well worth it! I use these every year to find potential spots to tracked down burn morels here in Colorado and have even used them to find morels in Oregon.
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Adam Haritan's Learn Your Land is another excellent resource for foraging, botany, mycology, and more. His YouTube Channel is one of my personal favorites! He's located in Pennsylvania so his focus is on species that are more commonly found in the eastern parts of the US, but many are also relevant for Colorado!
Recipes and Cooking
I love learning about plants and mushrooms, but the main reason to forage is the food! I've always loved cooking and I find inspiration from all sorts of places and people! The following are some of my favorites...
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Hank Shaw is the man behind Hunter, Angler, Gardener, Cook and has always been a source of recipes and culinary inspiration for me. I own all four of his Books and regularly browse his site for new ideas.
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Alan Bergo, also known as Forager Chef, is another source of foraging and cooking knowledge that frequently leads me to new ideas and preparations. He's working on a book called Flora that should be out in 2021!
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Pascal Baudar is a person that I've only started following recently (as of writing this), but if you're at all curious about fermenting his Instagram Page is a treasure trove of knowledge. He also has three books all about fermenting and brewing with wild ingredients. They can be found on Amazon.
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My above mentioned friends at Modern Forager recently published a wonderful mushroom cookbook! Wild Mushrooms: A Cookbook and Foraging Guide is lovely complication of recipes and tips from 25 different foragers around North America, including yours truly. Kristen and Trent complied the recipes, tested and photographed them, and made it all come together in this awesome book! Check it out on their website, Modern Forager or on Amazon.