Best Audience for The Neighborhood Forager:
Beginning to experienced armchair foragers and foragers who are well versed in plant identification.
Sue said: The Neighborhood Forager takes us on a walk along the streets of a common Pacific Northwest neighborhood. The plants are frequent visitors to my own table and medicine chest because I live in the Willamette Valley, which shares a bioregion with Seattle, Robert Henderson’s home. This book should be an inspiration to wild foragers in other regions to write similar guides for their areas. I would relish a book that featured Paw Paw pie or Bog Cranberry tart. The recipes Henderson suggests have, so far, been tasty and clearly written. I look forward to trying more of them. His knowledge of herbal medicine is great for a beginner but uninspiring for the seasoned herbalist. Henderson gives ample cautions on proper identification of plants, and I wouldn’t feel confident trying a new plant’s edibility with just his book in hand. The Neighborhood Forager is a perfect companion text for a wild-crafter who is eager to try new uses for old friends.
Candace said: I’ve enjoyed reading many of the entries in Robert K. Henderson’s The Neighborhood Forager. His style is light and approachable, making foraging for food in my suburban neighborhood seem a lot more realistic than I’d thought it before. The plant descriptions, for the most part, are well-written. The photos and drawings were useful, although not as much so as I would have liked. The Neighborhood Forager is too large for me to realistically carry with me as I traverse the neighborhood, so it functions more as an at-home reference for me and as such doesn’t quite bridge-the-gap between reading about foraging and actually doing it. I’ve often longed for a companion pocket guide containing all of the plants Henderson covers with color photos and the same terrific descriptions from The Neighborhood Forager to help me learn to identify and gather in my own neighborhood. Still, The Neighborhood Forager by Robert k. Henderson is one reference I’m glad to have on my shelf.
The Bottom Line: Candace and Sue give Robert K. Henderson’s The Neighborhood Forager two thumbs up.
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