(R.I.P. Katie Letcher Lyle, 78, in Aug. 2016.)
Following up on the previous stack, here’s a brilliant book at identifying wild food in North America and telling you how to cook it once you’ve harvested it!
It is shocking to think we have all this food around us in America growing wild and we think of most of them as nuisance weeds - including medicinal species which treat all kinds of deficiencies and illness. Lewis and Clark were dying of scurvy until their Indian guide tried boiling a handful of pine needles from the ground which they had laid down to die on!!
If this book is in your digital library on a single USB, imagine how valuable it would become in a famine or if you were a retreater stuck in the middle of nowhere with little food. It would be invaluable.
Shortly before I left Australia I bought this 100 gigabyte E-Reader tablet at a thrift store about the size of a postcard from some electronics manufacturer who has since gone out of business. You can carry it in one hand and browse your library. Screen is grayscale but illuminated from behind. It’s very legible. Powered by a couple of triple A batteries.
I put my entire library of digital books on this tablet and found I still had more than half the space remaining.
I was almost out of the thrift store when I saw this tablet sitting with some children’s books and toys. They wanted $2.50 for it. I gave them $5 and told them to keep the change.
You can’t help but think what that tablet would be worth to you in your bugout bag when you were in a terrible situation somewhere. It would be almost priceless. You could be sitting in a copse of trees beside the railroad way out in the boonies, damp and hungry. One last candy bar and you’d be starving to death. Then you’d have a look at a book like this … glance around with brand new eyes … and realize you were surrounded by food. You might be cooking up a stew that very evening with what you foraged. If you found a can of dog food or caught a bird it might be a meat stew. Could keep you alive where only a few minutes before you had a look at the book you’d feel like giving up. No options but sit there.
Knowledge can be a real push back against darkness at times.
All you have to know is the specifics and if you had a book, that would do the trick. Telling the difference between sumac (poisonous) and harmless red berries would mean you’d have dessert, as well.
Bang, Bob’s your uncle, another day under your belt and not hopeless tomorrow either.
(Added to the Memex)
Regards, Tex
Many thanks as always!🥳
Thank you! A thorough guide~