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Would you like to forage for herbs and other wild edibles? Grab a guidebook, a digital camera, a dental mirror, and set your search patterns!

Foraging or "wild crafting" seems to be regaining popularity thanks to the slow food and eating locally movements. You can't eat much more locally than from your own yard, or neighboring fields and forests. Foraging is fun, healthy, and easier than you might think.

Our increasingly commercial and globalized world places heavy emphasis on "approved," meaning "marketable" produce. In the 21st century, few people know that dandelions, for instance, were brought to North America as a food crop! Regarded (or perhaps more appropriately, disregarded) today as a weed, dandelions are nearly ubiquitous, and their value as a nutritious, flavorful food has not diminished one bit. All that has changed is our perception of it.

This is merely one example of wild food that can be found as close as your front yard. Pick up a book on wild edible and medicinal plants for your region, and read the myriad uses of commonly found plants for food, medicine, paint, fabric, and much more. Often the variety of uses for a single plant is staggering!

The first step to wild crafting is to get one or more of these good local guides for your area. This is very important. In fact, if you have a choice of more than one, consider getting them all. Play them off against each other, and you'll find that one will fill gaps in the other. The old adage, "forewarned is forearmed" applies to wild crafting, because often herbs that are not poisonous in and of themselves may have adverse effects on certain people! A good plant guide will warn you of these possibilities. Portable field guides that you can take with you on your hunt are best.

A good guide is most important if you're hunting mushrooms. The best I've found are David Arora's two books, MUSHROOMS DEMYSTIFIED and the far more portable follow up, ALL THAT THE RAIN PROMISES AND MORE. These two books will tell you just about everything you need to know about mushrooms, including one bit of wisdom that has given many people the confidence to try mushroom hunting for the first time. Mr. Arora points out that while it's very common to have a bad reaction to an edible mushroom, most mushrooms are not deadly poisonous. He tells us that few of them will actually kill you. They may sicken you to the point where you wish you were dead, but that will pass, and it's very likely you will recover. That, and a careful study

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