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As one of the forefathers of ecological awareness in B.C., Dan Jason has roots and tendrils in B.C. publishing that go deep. With his new book on pulses--a term for chick peas, favas, peas, lentils, beans--he remains on the cutting edge.
Jason first broke new ground with Your Own Food (Intermedia, 1972), followed soon thereafter by a now-hard-to-find bestseller Some Useful Wild Plants for Nourishment and Healing (Talonbooks, 1974/1975), co-authored by Nancy Jason and Tom Perry. [See a review of this reprinted book below]
What began as a project to record some edible and medicinal plants of the Slocan Valley grew into a larger compendium with sections about herbs of southern B.C., trees, berries, seaweeds and poisonous plants.
It was during those post-Woodstock early 1970s that the back-to-land movement started getting serious in B.C. Coincidentally a young Mayne Islander named Vic Marks, a former editor of B.C. Access Catalogue, produced a practical hippie bible for rural living, Cloudburst: A Handbook of Rural Skills and Technology (1973). We were stardust, we were golden, and we had to get ourselves back to the garden.
In 1976, Jason moved to Salt Spring Island and started to grow large gardens. He created the mail-order seed company Salt Spring Seeds in 1986, initially selling packets of a dozen bean varieties, as well as quinoa and amaranth. Jason continues to grow much of the food his family eats and he now sells more than 700 different herbs, vegetables, beans, grains and flowers.
Co-authored with fifty recipes from the foodie-sister team of Hilary Malone and Alison Malone Eathorne, Dan Jason's new The Power of Pulses (Harbour, 2016) is an informative and inspirational guide to growing and eating pulses that coincides with the United Nations' International Year of Pulses.
In world where the environmental costs of sustaining meat-based diets have given rise to movements such as Meatless Monday, pulses are now being touted as an earth-saving substitute for meat or tofu as a source of protein.
Both Jason's book and the U.N. declaration are devoted to promoting the nutritional and environmental benefits of pulses which are rich in fibre, high in vitamin B, and remarkably low on the glycemic index, helping to reduce the risk of diabetes, heart disease and other chronic illnesses.
Pulses are gluten-free and ideal for grind-your-own flour for non-gluten breads and baking. Perhaps best of all for the planet, self-fertilizing pulses use half of the non-renewable energy compared to most other crops.
"While the ecological and health benefits of cutting down on meat consumption are widely known, not all meat-replacements are created equal," we are told.
"Soy products have long been a staple of vegetarian diets, but soybeans are often grown in pesticide-heavy mono-cultures, processed in factories and shipped long distances.
"By contrast, pulses are easy on the environment: versatile in their unprocessed state, needing no refrigeration and little packaging, and many are a snap to grow organically, even for new gardeners.
"In addition to being easy to grow at home, millions of tonnes of pulses are commercially harvested across North America, making them an ideal daily food for locavores."
Vegetarian recipes include Black Bean Brownies with Espresso Ganache; Broad Bean Succotash with Fresh Ricotta & Poached Eggs on Toast; and Crispy Chickpea Power Bowl with Kale, Quinoa & Dukkah Crunch.
Having enjoyed gardening since his childhood in Montreal, Jason graduated from McGill with a degree in Anthropology in 1967. Jason has since developed his own Black Jet soybean variety and now specializes in seeds for high-protein plants.
He has been president of the Seed and Plant Sanctuary for Canada since 2002, a national network of organic growers dedicated to preserving heirloom seeds, and he has written several other books including Greening the Garden, a guide to sustainable organic growing, and a children's book, Once Upon A Time I Love You, illustrated by his daughter Zama, in 1972.
"My biggest surprise as a seedsman was to learn just a few years ago that Canada has become the world's largest exporter of dried peas and beans, chickpeas, favas and lentils," he says.
"Other countries love our pulses but we consume less than ten percent of what we cultivate.
"I've dedicated myself to popularizing beans as something we North Americans should be growing and eating. In the context of climate change, beans have some very powerful things to say!"
Dan Jason lives on Salt Spring Island where he founded the mail-order seed company Salt Spring Seeds. He has written several bestselling books about growing and preparing food sustainably, including The Whole Organic Food Book (Raincoast Books, 2001) and Saving Seeds as if Our Lives Depended on It (Salt Spring Seeds, 2006). His latest book, co-authored with Rupert Adams is Medicinal Perennials to Know and Grow (Harbour $19.95), which describes some of the best-known medicinal plants and provides expert information on their care and use. Lyn Alice’s watercolours accompany Jason and Adams’ write-ups about the nature of each plant, how to grow them, their medicinal properties and other potential perks, such as their ability to produce dyes or attract pollinators. Adams specializes in growing medicinal herbs and runs his own medicinal herb and tincture business, Kairos Botanicals, in Agassiz.
BOOKS:
Your Own Food: A Forager's Guide (Intermedia, 1972) 9780889560819
Once Upon A Time I Love You (Intermedia, 1972)
Some Useful Wild Plants for Nourishment and Healing (Talonbooks, 1974/ 1975). Co-authored by Nancy Jason and Tom Perry
Greening the Garden: A Guide to Sustainable Growing (New Society Publishers, 1991) 9780865712270
The Really Whole Food Cookbook (Harbour, 1994) 9781550171174. Co-authored by Dawn Brooks.
Living Lightly on the Land: Self-Reliance in Food & Medicine (1998)
The Whole Organic Food Book: Safe, Healthy Harvest from Your Garden to Your Plate (Raincoast Books, 2001) 9781551924267
Saving Seeds As If Our Lives Depended On It (2006)
The Power of Pulses (D&M, 2016) $24.95 9781771621021. Co-authored by Hilary Malone and Alison Malone Eathorne. Photography by Christina Symons & others.
Some Useful Wild Plants: A Foraging Guide to Food and Medicine From Nature (Harbour, 2017) 9781550177916. Illustrations by Robert Inwood.
Awesome Ancient Grains and Seeds: A Garden-to-Kitchen Guide (D&M, 2018) 9781771621779
Saving Seeds: A Home Gardener's Guide to Preserving Plant Biodiversity (Harbour, 2020) $14.95 9781550179002
Medicinal Perennials to Know and Grow (Harbour, 2023) $19.95 9781990776465. Co-authored by Rupert Adams. Illustrations by Lyn Alice.
[BCBW 2023]
Jason first broke new ground with Your Own Food (Intermedia, 1972), followed soon thereafter by a now-hard-to-find bestseller Some Useful Wild Plants for Nourishment and Healing (Talonbooks, 1974/1975), co-authored by Nancy Jason and Tom Perry. [See a review of this reprinted book below]
What began as a project to record some edible and medicinal plants of the Slocan Valley grew into a larger compendium with sections about herbs of southern B.C., trees, berries, seaweeds and poisonous plants.
It was during those post-Woodstock early 1970s that the back-to-land movement started getting serious in B.C. Coincidentally a young Mayne Islander named Vic Marks, a former editor of B.C. Access Catalogue, produced a practical hippie bible for rural living, Cloudburst: A Handbook of Rural Skills and Technology (1973). We were stardust, we were golden, and we had to get ourselves back to the garden.
In 1976, Jason moved to Salt Spring Island and started to grow large gardens. He created the mail-order seed company Salt Spring Seeds in 1986, initially selling packets of a dozen bean varieties, as well as quinoa and amaranth. Jason continues to grow much of the food his family eats and he now sells more than 700 different herbs, vegetables, beans, grains and flowers.
Co-authored with fifty recipes from the foodie-sister team of Hilary Malone and Alison Malone Eathorne, Dan Jason's new The Power of Pulses (Harbour, 2016) is an informative and inspirational guide to growing and eating pulses that coincides with the United Nations' International Year of Pulses.
In world where the environmental costs of sustaining meat-based diets have given rise to movements such as Meatless Monday, pulses are now being touted as an earth-saving substitute for meat or tofu as a source of protein.
Both Jason's book and the U.N. declaration are devoted to promoting the nutritional and environmental benefits of pulses which are rich in fibre, high in vitamin B, and remarkably low on the glycemic index, helping to reduce the risk of diabetes, heart disease and other chronic illnesses.
Pulses are gluten-free and ideal for grind-your-own flour for non-gluten breads and baking. Perhaps best of all for the planet, self-fertilizing pulses use half of the non-renewable energy compared to most other crops.
"While the ecological and health benefits of cutting down on meat consumption are widely known, not all meat-replacements are created equal," we are told.
"Soy products have long been a staple of vegetarian diets, but soybeans are often grown in pesticide-heavy mono-cultures, processed in factories and shipped long distances.
"By contrast, pulses are easy on the environment: versatile in their unprocessed state, needing no refrigeration and little packaging, and many are a snap to grow organically, even for new gardeners.
"In addition to being easy to grow at home, millions of tonnes of pulses are commercially harvested across North America, making them an ideal daily food for locavores."
Vegetarian recipes include Black Bean Brownies with Espresso Ganache; Broad Bean Succotash with Fresh Ricotta & Poached Eggs on Toast; and Crispy Chickpea Power Bowl with Kale, Quinoa & Dukkah Crunch.
Having enjoyed gardening since his childhood in Montreal, Jason graduated from McGill with a degree in Anthropology in 1967. Jason has since developed his own Black Jet soybean variety and now specializes in seeds for high-protein plants.
He has been president of the Seed and Plant Sanctuary for Canada since 2002, a national network of organic growers dedicated to preserving heirloom seeds, and he has written several other books including Greening the Garden, a guide to sustainable organic growing, and a children's book, Once Upon A Time I Love You, illustrated by his daughter Zama, in 1972.
"My biggest surprise as a seedsman was to learn just a few years ago that Canada has become the world's largest exporter of dried peas and beans, chickpeas, favas and lentils," he says.
"Other countries love our pulses but we consume less than ten percent of what we cultivate.
"I've dedicated myself to popularizing beans as something we North Americans should be growing and eating. In the context of climate change, beans have some very powerful things to say!"
Dan Jason lives on Salt Spring Island where he founded the mail-order seed company Salt Spring Seeds. He has written several bestselling books about growing and preparing food sustainably, including The Whole Organic Food Book (Raincoast Books, 2001) and Saving Seeds as if Our Lives Depended on It (Salt Spring Seeds, 2006). His latest book, co-authored with Rupert Adams is Medicinal Perennials to Know and Grow (Harbour $19.95), which describes some of the best-known medicinal plants and provides expert information on their care and use. Lyn Alice’s watercolours accompany Jason and Adams’ write-ups about the nature of each plant, how to grow them, their medicinal properties and other potential perks, such as their ability to produce dyes or attract pollinators. Adams specializes in growing medicinal herbs and runs his own medicinal herb and tincture business, Kairos Botanicals, in Agassiz.
BOOKS:
Your Own Food: A Forager's Guide (Intermedia, 1972) 9780889560819
Once Upon A Time I Love You (Intermedia, 1972)
Some Useful Wild Plants for Nourishment and Healing (Talonbooks, 1974/ 1975). Co-authored by Nancy Jason and Tom Perry
Greening the Garden: A Guide to Sustainable Growing (New Society Publishers, 1991) 9780865712270
The Really Whole Food Cookbook (Harbour, 1994) 9781550171174. Co-authored by Dawn Brooks.
Living Lightly on the Land: Self-Reliance in Food & Medicine (1998)
The Whole Organic Food Book: Safe, Healthy Harvest from Your Garden to Your Plate (Raincoast Books, 2001) 9781551924267
Saving Seeds As If Our Lives Depended On It (2006)
The Power of Pulses (D&M, 2016) $24.95 9781771621021. Co-authored by Hilary Malone and Alison Malone Eathorne. Photography by Christina Symons & others.
Some Useful Wild Plants: A Foraging Guide to Food and Medicine From Nature (Harbour, 2017) 9781550177916. Illustrations by Robert Inwood.
Awesome Ancient Grains and Seeds: A Garden-to-Kitchen Guide (D&M, 2018) 9781771621779
Saving Seeds: A Home Gardener's Guide to Preserving Plant Biodiversity (Harbour, 2020) $14.95 9781550179002
Medicinal Perennials to Know and Grow (Harbour, 2023) $19.95 9781990776465. Co-authored by Rupert Adams. Illustrations by Lyn Alice.
[BCBW 2023]
Articles: 1 Article for this author
Some Useful Wild Plants
Review 2017
Some Useful Wild Plants: A Foraging Guide to Food and Medicine from Nature
by Dan Jason
Madeira Park: Harbour Publishing, 2017.
$16.95 / 978-1-55017-791-6
Reviewed by Natasha Lyons
*
Reviewing a book published before you were born is an interesting historical exercise. Dan Jason’s Some Useful Wild Plants: A Foraging Guide to Food and Medicine from Nature led me to reflect on the social sense of the time, the way that science was practiced, and how knowledge first imparted since the book’s appearance in 1971 has translated across the space of four and half decades. Jason wrote the first edition of this guide in response to the lack of comparable resources for the forest-wanderer. It has sold over 30,000 copies in six printings.
A transplant himself from out east, Jason lived many years in the Slocan Valley before starting Salt Spring Seeds on the Gulf Island of the same name thirty years ago, a company that now actively grows over 700 wild and domestic plants for seed (p. 8).
Jason’s guide is usefully divided into easy categories -- herbs and shrubs, berries, seaweeds, trees, and poisonous plants -- organized alphabetically within by common name. Some of the plants described are species-specific, others are at the genus or family level.
The writing is accessible and engaging. Each entry starts with a description of the plant and its ecology followed by an account of its use in foods, beverages, technologies and medicines. The illustrations produced by Robert Inwood are folksy and charming and, while black and white, give a good sense of these plants’ structure and environment. They assist with practical identification in the field.
Jason provides plenty of valuable knowledge and practical applications. For instance, did you know that balsamroot seeds (Balsamorhiza sagittata), when toasted and ground, taste like popcorn (p. 14)? Or that seaweeds can be used as an ingredient in liquor (p. 128)?
Willow (Salix spp.) -- widely known as a pain reliever -- can also be used as a medicinal substitute for quinine (p. 151), but you should avoid ingesting any part of the very beautiful perennial Pacific bleeding heart (Dicentra spp.), which contains an alkaloid that causes convulsions (p. 168).
Jason accrued his information from various sources. For the original volume, he consulted “First Nations herbalists and Doukhobor wildcrafters,” published works, a network of plant-lovers (p. 8), as well as sharing a great deal of his own well-earned practical knowledge -- and that of his partner, apparently, as there is liberal use of the pronoun “we” in the text.
It is not clear what revisions there are to this edition. It may just be the new introduction, which among other things expresses the author’s appreciation and amazement at the continued success and utility of Some Useful Wild Plants.
To understand the original impact of the 1970s edition, I consulted Cedana Bourne of the Galiano Conservancy, who remembers purchasing a secondhand copy in the early 1990s. At the time, she was amazed by the knowledge in this guide, which was still one of a few in its genre. She told me it was foundational to her learning about coastal plants.
Jason’s volume was even more anomalous in the early 1970s when it was first published, but it was part of the leading edge of an era of active ethnobotany in British Columbia whose fervour has continued to the present. Nancy Turner’s seminal Food Plants of Coastal First Peoples would be published in 1975, followed by companion volumes in the Royal British Columbia Museum series. Tilford’s Edible and Medicinal Plants of the West, a clear descendant of both these books, was published in 1997.
Like these guides, Jason chose his “useful wild plants” for their utility (or in the case of poisonous plants, the opposite) to different harvesters, ubiquity on the landscape, and wildness.
Though unstated, Jason clearly means “wild” to refer to plants that are either native or naturalized to North American forests. Many of these latter plants, such as mullein (Verbascum thapsis), chamomile (Chamaemelum nobile; note that Matricaria spp. and several other asters growing in the Northwest are also called chamomile), and alfalfa (Medicago sativa) are very useful plants with foreign origins.
Inwood’s whimsical drawing of alfalfa (Figure 1) shows it growing (wild or sowed?) near a farmstead and being munched on by a cow; this plant was introduced to North America from Eurasia.
As with society itself, plant guides have become more scientific in the past many decades, and in his introduction Jason refers to the scores of glossy plant guides now available. Pojar and MacKinnon’s Plants of the Pacific Northwest Coast, first published in 1994, and companion volumes in Lone Pine’s series, are perhaps the flagships of this form.
These guides provide distribution maps, excellent photographs, and detailed information on habitat, ecology, and use.
For the weekend hiker, modern-day wild-crafter, and plant researcher alike, such guides are absolutely indispensable, and Jason’s guide is best used alongside them when making identifications, particularly because illustrations are only provided for about half of his plants.
Curious and serious plant researcher types can consult amazing digital resources such as the Eflora B.C. Atlas (http://ibis.geog.ubc.ca/biodiversity/eflora/) for access to multiple photographs and information on nomenclature, herbarium records, and relevant databases.
Scientific study has advanced plant knowledge on myriad fronts since the 1970s. DNA analysis, for instance, has shifted our knowledge of the taxonomy and distribution of wild plants in the Northwest and beyond. While unimportant to the general user, plant researchers will need to know that red and blue elderberry (Sambucus spp.) have been moved from the valerian (Caprifoliaceae) to the honeysuckle (Adoxaceae) family, blue and common camas (Camassia spp.) from the lily (Liliaceae) to the asparagus (Asparagaceae) family.
Genetics, archaeology, and First Nations knowledge have led to our recognition that present-day plant distributions are heavily influenced by pre-contact and historic range extension by Indigenous communities that transplanted, cultivated, and traded food and technological plants heavily and widely throughout British Columbia and the Pacific Northwest, including camas, hazelnut (Corylus cornuta), and various edible berries (Armstrong 2017; Lyons and Ritchie 2017; Turner 2014).
I was not familiar with this book until now and was captivated by its charming cover, easy style, and the depth and novelty of the knowledge shared in its pages. I learned much from reading this B.C. back-to-the-land and forest-wanderer classic and will enjoy having it on the trail with me.
I know that the plant community of B.C. will join me in congratulating Dan Jason on the staying power and continued relevance of Some Useful Wild Plants.
*
Natasha Lyons is an ethnobotanist, palaeoethnobotanist, and archaeologist. She lives with her family in the Ponderosa pine zone of B.C.’s North Okanagan, and can often be found exploring the flora and fauna of the provincial park that borders their home. Natasha and her husband Ian own and operate Ursus Heritage Consulting, and work with First Nations and Inuit communities across Western Canada. Natasha is Adjunct Faculty in the Department of Archaeology at Simon Fraser University, where she did both her Master’s and post-doctoral studies. She publishes widely on community-based practice, critical archaeology, and the many amazing ways and means that Indigenous First Peoples have used plants in the past and present.\
*
References—for more information
Armstrong, Chelsey Geralda
Historical Ecology of Cultural Landscapes in the Pacific Northwest. Unpublished PhD Dissertation, Department of Archaeology, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, 2017. Soon available on SFU Library at: www.lib.sfu.ca
Klinkenberg, Brian, Ed.
E-Flora BC: Electronic Atlas of the Flora of British Columbia [eflora.bc.ca]. Lab for Advanced Spatial Analysis, Department of Geography, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, 2017. Website accessed: 12 July 2017.
Lyons, Natasha and Morgan Ritchie
“The Archaeology of Camas Production and Exchange on the Northwest Coast: with Evidence from a Sts’ailes (Chehalis) Village on the Harrison River, B.C.” Journal of Ethnobiology (2017) 37(2): 346-367.
Pojar, Jim and Andy MacKinnon, eds.
Plants of Coastal British Columbia including Washington, Oregon and Alaska. BC Ministry of Forests and Lone Pine Publishing, Vancouver, 1994.
Tilford, Gregory
Edible and Medicinal Plants of the West. Mountain Press Publishing, Missoula, Montana, 1997.
Turner, Nancy
Food Plants of Coastal First Peoples. Royal British Columbia Museum Handbook. First edition 1975. UBC Press, Vancouver, 1995.
Turner, Nancy
Ancient Pathways, Ancestral Knowledge: Ethnobotany and Ecological Wisdom of Indigenous Peoples of Northwestern North America, Volume 1 (2014). McGill-Queen’s University Press, Montreal & Kingston.
*
The Ormsby Review. More Readers. More Reviews. More Often.
[Ormsby 2017]
