Abstract
The aim of this review is to present an overview of changes in the contemporary use of wild food plants in Europe, mainly using the examples of our home countries: Poland, Italy, Spain, Estonia and Sweden. We set the scene referring to the nutrition of 19th century peasants, involving many famine and emergency foods. Later we discuss such issues as children's wild snacks, the association between the decline of plant knowledge and the disappearance of plant use, the effects of over-exploitation, the decrease of the availability of plants due to ecosystem changes, land access rights for foragers and intoxication dangers. We also describe the 20th and 21st century vogues in wild plant use, particularly their shift into the domain of haute-cuisine.
Highlights
Acta Societatis Botanicorum PoloniaeWild food plant use in 21st century Europe: the disappearance of old traditions and the search for new cuisines involving wild edibles
The aim of this review is to present an overview of changes in the contemporary use of wild food plants in Europe, mainly using the examples of our home countries: Poland, Italy, Spain, Estonia and Sweden
All the early studies on the use of wild food plants in Europe – from those coming from the 19th century until more or less the 1960s – capture the memory of famine and the use of wild plants as a means of basic survival, including the consumption of starvation foods that in normal times would be discarded by the community (Tab. 1)
Summary
Wild food plant use in 21st century Europe: the disappearance of old traditions and the search for new cuisines involving wild edibles. Łukasz Łuczaj1*, Andrea Pieroni, Javier Tardío, Manuel Pardo-de-Santayana, Renata Sõukand, Ingvar Svanberg, Raivo Kalle
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