Good-bye, Brooklyn, and Hello, Northeast Foraging
Just over a week ago two extraordinary things happened in my life: I moved out of Brooklyn, which was my home for almost two decades, and I received my author’s advance copy of Northeast Foraging: 120 Wild and Flavorful Edibles from Beach Plums to Wineberries
. The book arrived on my very last night in the Park Slope homestead I had lived in for almost 11 of my years in BK.
Northeast Foraging: 120 Wild and Flavorful Edibles from Beach Plums to Wineberries
is a field guide that Timber Press and I have been working on for two years. The book is available for pre-order, and if you order now it will be in your hands by the start of April - just in time for the northeastern foraging season to get into full swing.
I’ll let others do the rest of the shameless promo for me at the end of this post, but first I want to remember my BK homestead:
I spotted this fellow a few days before I moved. He's in the branches of one of the over 14-foot tall elderberry shrubs that I started from 7-inch slips.
Advance praise for Northeast Foraging: 120 Wild and Flavorful Edibles from Beach Plums to Wineberries
“Leda Meredith has produced the best foraging guide for the Northeast-a book that wild food gatherers of all skill levels will want to own.”
—Sam Thayer, author of The Forager’s Harvest: A Guide to Identifying, Harvesting, and Preparing Edible Wild Plants
and Nature’s Garden: A Guide to Identifying, Harvesting, and Preparing Edible Wild Plants
“Leda Meredith’s Northeast Foraging is that rare field guide where you sense the guide is a living presence right beside you as you are out foraging for edible wild plants. Leda writes with such a personable “trailside” manner that you come to feel you’re having a conversation with her about what you’re finding, how to be certain it’s what you want, and how to gather and prepare it for eating or preserve it for later use. This is as close as you can come to having the author take you by the hand.”
—Gary Lincoff
Author of The Joy of Foraging: Gary Lincoff’s Illustrated Guide to Finding, Harvesting, and Enjoying a World of Wild Food
and instructor at The New York Botanical Garden
“This book is loaded with useful, accurate info about wild foods and what to do with them, and it’s entertaining too. Whether you’re a beginner or expert, you’ll love it as much as I did.”
—Wildman Steve Brill, America’s Go-to Guy for Foraging
“Leda Meredith possesses a depth of knowledge about wild edible plants surpassed by few modern foragers, and her Northeast Foraging will become an invaluable guide for the feast in the East. I especially love her tips on preserving the wild harvest — Nature waits for no one, and Meredith knows you must gather while you can. I will be sure to carry this book with me whenever I am east of the Great Plains.”
—Hank Shaw
Author of the James Beard Award–winning website Hunter Angler Gardener Cook,
Author, Hunt, Gather, Cook: Finding the Forgotten Feast
,
and Duck, Duck, Goose: The Ultimate Guide to Cooking Waterfowl, Both Farmed and Wild
“What I love about this book is that it’s not simply a guide to plant identification. Leda sets you up with the framework for what it means to forage as an undertaking. Mandatory guide for any Chef who is serious about foraging in the Northeast.”
—Tom Kearny
Chef at The Farm on Adderley
Order Northeast Foraging: 120 Wild and Flavorful Edibles from Beach Plums to Wineberries
I am chomping at the bit! Can’t wait to settle in and read it from cover to cover. Congratulations!