Learn to cook with over 200 herbs and spices with this handy guide featuring detailed plant profiles, flavor-packed recipes, and stunning photos. Become an expert in flavor pairings and seasonings! Field Guide to Herbs & Spices will forever change the way you cook. With this practical guide—including full-color photographs of more than 200 different herbs, spices, and spice mixtures—you’ll never again be intimidated or confused by the vast array of spices available. Learn to discern the differences between the varieties of basil, the various colors of sesame seeds, the diverse types of sugar and salt, and even how to identify spice pastes like zhoug, harissa, and achiote. Each entry features a basic history of the herb or spice (saffron used to be worth more than gold!), its season (if applicable), selection and preparation tips, a recipe featuring the seasoning, and some suggested flavor pairings. Complete with more than one hundred recipes, Field Guide to Herbs & Spices is a must-have resource for every home cook.

This full-color, user-friendly field guide covers the basics involved in the collection, cleaning, and storage of herb and spice seeds. Learn from an expert how to overcome pests when storing seeds, and handle environmental factors that may threaten the integrity of your seeds. An introduction to identifying different varieties of seeds will make collecting easy for beginner and experienced collectors alike. Over 100 close-up color photographs of seeds gathered from herbs and spices are included in this encyclopedia-style guide. Each entry identifies the seed's family, common name, species, genera, and origin, and includes collection methods, a description of the number and color of seeds, useful hints for collection, and notes on growing the source plant. Gardeners around the world will appreciate this useful field guide when harvesting nature's bounty and preserving its genetic material for years and gardens to come.

This exquisitely detailed full-color field guide, by biologist and herbal and medical plant expert Jim Meuninck, provides identification, practical information, and skills for the location of and use of medicinal plants. The pages of this book re-connect us to our roots and the knowledge that medicinal plants and wild plant foods provide the chemicals every body needs to obtain optimum health and prevent disease. Meuninck moves the user from simple and familiar plants toward less common plants more difficult to identify. Each of the 122 plants has a color photograph, plant description, and location. Identification of plants are grouped from common to rare in the environment and where they are found: prairies, woodlands, mountains, deserts, and wetlands. Relevant facts about each plant such as toxicity, historical uses, modern uses, as well as wildlife/veterinary uses are also listed. Additional information included in this extraordinary field guide: explanations of how each plant affects the human body; cultural and ethnic uses of medicinal herbs and cooking spices; others creatures who consume the plants; a list of most recommended garden herbs; web site resources, and much more. The Author's Notes provide personal experiences and novel skills honed from over forty years of experience. They include: gardening tips, recipes, formulations, humor, successful experiences, and more. There is no field guide as all-encompassing and detailed as this one, yet it's portable and easy to understand.

"Let food be your medicine, medicine your food."-Hippocrates, 2400 B.C.When the "Father of Medicine" uttered those famous words, spices were as important for medicine, embalming, preserving food, and masking bad odors as they were for more mundane culinary matters. Author James A. Duke predicts that spices such as capsicum, cinnamon, garlic, ginger

For centuries herbs and spices have been an integral part of many of the world’s great cuisines. But spices have a history of doing much more than adding life to bland foods. They have been the inspiration for, among other things, trade, exploration, and poetry. Priests employed them in worship, incantations, and rituals, and shamans used them as charms to ward off evil spirits. Nations fought over access to and monopoly of certain spices, like cinnamon and nutmeg, when they were rare commodities. Not only were many men’s fortunes made in the pursuit of spices, spices at many periods throughout history literally served as currency. In Culinary Herbs and Spices of the World, Ben-Erik van Wyk offers the first fully illustrated, scientific guide to nearly all commercial herbs and spices in existence. Van Wyk covers more than 150 species—from black pepper and blackcurrant to white mustard and white ginger—detailing the propagation, cultivation, and culinary uses of each. Introductory chapters capture the essence of culinary traditions, traditional herb and spice mixtures, preservation, presentation, and the chemistry of flavors, and individual entries include the chemical compounds and structures responsible for each spice or herb’s characteristic flavor. Many of the herbs and spices van Wyk covers are familiar fixtures in our own spice racks, but a few—especially those from Africa and China—will be introduced for the first time to American audiences. Van Wyk also offers a global view of the most famous use or signature dish for each herb or spice, satisfying the gourmand’s curiosity for more information about new dishes from little-known culinary traditions. People all over the world are becoming more sophisticated and demanding about what they eat and how it is prepared. Culinary Herbs and Spices of the World will appeal to those inquisitive foodies in addition to gardeners and botanists.

At last, a field guide to identifying and selecting more than 200 fruits and vegetables from around the world! The perfect companion for every shopper, Field Guide to Produce offers tips for selecting, storing, and preparing everything from apples to zucchini. When an unfamiliar edible appears on your grocer’s shelf, simply flip through the full-color insert until you’ve found its photograph. Turn to the corresponding page to discover its country of origin, common uses, and season of harvest. This practical guide includes more than 200 full-color photographs of the world’s most popular fruits and vegetables, cross-referenced to in-depth descriptions and selection tips. Step-by-step preparation directions tell you whether the item must be peeled, washed, trimmed, or blanched. Grocery shopping—and dinner—will never be the same again!

From the Emmy-nominated host of the award-winning Top Chef, an A-to-Z compendium of spices, herbs, salts, peppers, and blends, with beautiful photography and a wealth of explanation, history, and cooking advice. “A beautiful book by Padma Lakshmi featuring an extensive catalogue and helpful recommendations on how best to use these ingredients to create full-flavored dishes. A great resource for any chef or home cook.” -- Eric Ripert Award-winning cookbook author and television host Padma Lakshmi, inspired by her life of traveling across the globe, brings together the world’s spices and herbs in a vibrant, comprehensive alphabetical guide. This definitive culinary reference book is illustrated with rich color photographs that capture the essence of a diverse range of spices and their authentic flavors. The Encyclopedia of Spices and Herbs includes complete descriptions, histories, and cooking suggestions for ingredients from basic herbs to the most exotic seeds and chilies, as well as information on toasting spices, making teas, and infusing various oils and vinegars. And no other market epitomizes Padma’s love for spices and global cuisine than where she spent her childhood—lingering in the aisles of the iconic gourmet food store Kalustyan’s, in New York City. Perfect for the holiday season and essential to any well-stocked kitchen or cooking enthusiast, The Encyclopedia of Spices and Herbs is an invaluable resource as well as a stunning and adventurous tour of some of the most wondrous and majestic flavors on earth.