A Handbook of Scotland’s Wild Harvests is essentially a guidebook to all things edible that grow around us in northern Britain. It’s beautifully put together and edited by a good friend Fi Martynoga, who famously lived for a year as an 18th-century woman—in a cottage at the bottom of her garden, with no mod cons!

It’s a superb, informative guide with an introduction from Emma Chapman and contributors dotted all the way through offering ideas for what to do with various berries, mushrooms, trees and more. There are also plenty of insights into basketry, broom making, green woodworking and log stacking—some of my favourite pastimes. 

This book is a perfect companion for anyone who ventures outdoors and wants to make the most of their surroundings. Did you know, for example, that a wild cherry in Scotland is called a gean; that gathering birch twigs to form a broom stick (like a witch’s one) was common until not long ago; bracken was used for thatching; and that we ate pignuts and all sorts of wild leaves like burdock root and sea buckthorn. 

There are recipes too, running all the way through the book, for teas, infusions, mushrooms and more. So plenty of ideas for what to do with what you find. I was delighted to be asked to write a few words ago for the back cover when this book was published—a very proud moment for me, as the late Andrew Fairlie was asked too. This book is a must, for all.