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Customer Review
Excellent book;entirely usable in the field.
I think this is an excellent book; well-written, with excellent translations of Indigenous People's names for these plants. (I am both D-/Lakota, speak, read, and write my languages; and forage for plants.) IF I have a criticism, it is (1) that the book should have a sequel with another 130 or so plants including both food and medicinal uses, and (2) I would wish for GOOD, SHARP color photographs of the plants as harvested AND as you would see them if you were looking closely for them where they usually grow. The sketches are extremely well done but there is nothing like color to show the differences between plants that appear similar (at least until your eye is honed). Tinpsila, for example, has a near look-alike that grows in the same area where I hunt, and it is hard to teach novices the difference in person, harder from a book with B/W sketches. I like the facts that (1) she includes the medicinal uses of at least some of the plants in the book; (2) she notes the...
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December 11, 1998
(Houston, TX) | Helpful Votes: 22 | Rating: 5
One of my Favorites
This is one of the best books written on edible wild plants. The author has researched the plants thoroughly, reporting on known ethnographic uses as well as his own experiences. The text is botanically accurate and pleasant to read. The line drawings are excellent, and while some would prefer photos, these are very good illustrations. This is one of the wild food books I refer to most often. One thing I really like about it is the way Kelly cites his sources so I can investigate further if I want. I also like that he includes a lot of plants like prairie turnip, ground plum, and bush morning glory, which are not widely discussed elsewhere in edible plant books.If you live in the prairie region this should be your first edible wild plant book. If you live elsewhere it is still an awsome book to have.
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August 3, 2008
| Helpful Votes: 7 | Rating: 5
Product Description
Long before sunflower seeds became a popular snack food, they were a foodstuff valued by Native Americans. for some 10,000 years, from the end of the Pleistocene to the 1800s, the indigenous peoples of the plains regarded edible native plants, like the sunflower, as an important source of food. Not only did plants provide sustenance during times of scarcity, but they also added variety to what otherwise would have been a monotonous diet of game. Nevertheless, the use of native plants as food sharply declined when white men settled the Great Plains and imposed their own culture with its differing notions of what was fit to eat. Those notions tended to exclude from the accepted diet such plants as soapweed, lambsquarter, ground cherry, prairie turnip, and prickly pear. Today it is strange to think of eating chokecherries, which were a key ingredient in that staple of the Indian diet, pemmican.
Based on plant lore documented by historical and archaeological evidence, Edible Wild Plants of the Prairie relates how 122 plant species were once used as food by the native and immigrant residents on the prairie. Written for a broad audience of amateur naturalists, botanists, ethnologists, anthropologists, and agronomists, this guide is intended to educate the reader about wild plants as food sources, to synthesize information on the potential use of native flora as new food crops, and to encourage the conservation and cultivation of prairie plants.
By writing about the edible flora of the American prairie Kelly Kindscher has provided us with the first edible plant book devoted to the region that Walt Whitman called "North America's characteristic landscape" and that Will Cather called "the floor of the sky." In describing how plants were used for food, he has drawn upon information concerning tribes that inhabited the prairie bioregion. As a consequence, his book serves as a handy compendium for readers seeking to learn more about historical uses of plants by Native Americans.
The book is organized into fifty-one chapters arranged alphabetically by scientific name. For those who are interested in finding and identifying the plants, the book provides line drawings, distribution maps, and botanical and habitat descriptions. The ethnobotanical accounts of food use form the major portion of the text, but the reader will also find information on the parts of the plants used, harvesting, propagation (for home gardeners), and the preparation and taste of wild food plants. Top to learn more
Great book for learning how the Native Americans used prairie plants.
Overall rating: 4 starsPlant identification: 3 starsPlant uses: 4 starsPicture type(s): black & white drawingsWho will find it useful: novice to expert foragers who want to know historical usage the wild edible plants of the central plains.Notes: I love this book and use a lot of its historical information in my plant classes. The drawings are large and detailed but unfortunately lack any scale indicators. The maps of each plant's growing range are very conservative and I've found many of the plants in areas outside the areas shown for them. A lot of its information is duplicated in .
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December 22, 2010
| Helpful Votes: 2 | Rating: 4
Amazing book.....with a warning