George Barnett shows that with this book he is not only knowledgeable, but has immeasurable wisdom about the forests and the wild areas of Kentucky. We should all consider ourselves lucky to have this edition to add to our library shelves. Foraging for food is at an all time high in popularity right now, and it is thanks to the hard work and dedication of people like George.
~Clay Bowers-Michigan, foraging teacher and nature enthusiast at nomiforager.com
While covering awesome native food plants like hickory and eastern camas, it's nice that George also includes non-native foods like wineberry and autumn olive. Combining wild edible plants and edible/medicinal mushrooms makes this book stand out in a fun and exciting way!
~Jed Arkels, small nursery grower/owner of Drop Seed Ecology, and wild foods enthusiast
This invitation to the wild of Kentucky, through mushrooms, edible plants, and herbs, introduces the reader to the edible outdoors with notes on identification, safety, practical uses, and sustainability while also inspiring a reverence for the land. A must-have for Kentucky foragers!
~Jess Starwood, author of Mushroom Wanderland
Drawing on scientific studies, Indigenous knowledge, folklore, and his own long experience, Barnett has provided us with an informative and useful guide to some of Kentucky's most popular wild edibles, as well as several unheralded species that perhaps deserve more attention. His descriptions of some fifty herbs, fungi, and woody plants include wonderful photographs and detailed instructions for every step of the foraging enterprise, from how to find and harvest them to how to eat them. Readers with any interest in foraging in and around the commonwealth should have Foraging Kentucky on their shelves.
~Luke Manget, author of Ginseng Diggers: A History of Root and Herb Gathering in Appalachia, winner of the 2023 W.D. Weatherford and James A. Duke Awards
If you care about eating local and living lightly on the land, Foraging Kentucky needs to be in your backpack. This book is an important reminder that our Commonwealth is a place of incredible abundance, if we learn to simply recognize it. Barnett invites us to slow down, discover our natural heritage, and indulge in the common wealth that our land offers.
~Justin Mog, Assistant to the Provost for Sustainability Initiatives at the University of Louisville
Among its other virtues, this book is timely as foraging, herbalism, and sustainability movements are having a moment. Many of us from the Appalachian region, in particular, are looking for ways to connect with our heritage in progressive ways and are nurturing a 21st century folk revival focused on the green world. If I'm right about this, that there is a folk revival brewing in the southern Appalachian region, then contemporary foraging schools are our places of worship and George Barnett's book, Foraging Kentucky, may well become one of our cherished sacred texts.
~Southern Literary Review
