Category: Reviews

Alan Bergo’s relationship with food and foraging is influenced by both his background in the culinary arts (he’s worked in high-end kitchens across the Twin Cities) and his insatiable curiosity about the world around him. In “The Forager Chef’s Book of Flora” — which, according to Bergo’s well-known blog, is set to be the first

“Iwígara: American Indian Ethnobotanical Traditions and Science,” by Enrique Salmón, focuses on 80 plants that are culturally relevant to North American native people. In the introduction of the book Salmón explains what the concept of Iwígara is in his Rarámuri tribe, and how the Rarámuri see themselves as part of an “extended ecological family,” setting

What would a just food system look like? This question is at the heart of Mark Bittman’s newest book, “Animal, Vegetable, Junk: A History of Food, from Sustainable to Suicidal.” Before he attempts an answer, Bittman brings readers on an epic journey through the history of food, from ancient Mesopotamia to the current COVID-19 pandemic.

“All That She Carried” by Tiya Miles humanizes captive Black people living in “the tear of humanity that was chattel slavery.” Set primarily in the antebellum south, Miles gives readers a tour of the plantations of white enslavers in South Carolina, detailing how infrastructure and society were shaped by the vast fields of rice and

As a mother I have watched our youngest generation be shaped by the climate crisis. I have witnessed climate anxiety overwhelm my children and their friends, listened to them share concerns that have kept them up at night, and done my best to field questions about the end of the world. At times, the dread

Apple growers and historians in Maine have been given a gift, that of knowing their apple history perhaps better than any other state in this country. Frederick Charles Bradford (1887-1950), the author and compiler of this seminal work as a thesis submitted to the University of Maine in 1911, has brought to life the trials

Step aside beloved beauties of the bug world. The time has arrived for the oft maligned fly’s moment in the spotlight. Leave your butterfly and honeybee love at the door: it’s all flesh flies and fungus gnats in the pages ahead. “13 Ways to Eat a Fly” is a reverse counting book for little ones

The Maine-based, award-winning children’s book author Kimberly Ridley shares her sense of wonder for the natural world with adults in her latest release, “Wild Design: Nature’s Architects.” By pairing brief essays on the forms of nature — including stalactites, coral reefs, pitcher plants and beaver lodges, to name a few — with reprints of antique

Have you noticed fewer bugs on your windshields? With 40% of insect species at risk of extinction, and an impending “insectageddon,” we need to take steps right now to “rebug” our planet, says Vicki Hird. And she has a book full of ideas about how we can do that. Like many of us, Hird uses

Year-round Maine residents might be skeptical upon encountering the title of Cathy Rees’s newly released  book, “Winterland: Create a Beautiful Garden for Every Season.” Is this aimed for gardeners in California? Texas? Florida? Rest assured; it is not. Rees is the cofounder of Native Gardens of Blue Hill in Maine and draws from more than