Product Description

Herbs and spices make everything taste better but can you tell your thyme from your sage? Do you know the difference between dill and rosemary? Where can you find hyssop or rose geranium?

Field Guide to Herbs & Spices is here to help. With color photographs of more than 200 different international seasonings, you'll soon be flavoring your dishes like a pro. Award-winning chef Aliza Green shows the basic history of these spices (saffron used to be worth more than gold!), its season (if applicable), names in other languages, a recipe featuring the seasoning, and much more. This handy field guide will make all of your meals complete!

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #149360 in Books
• Brand: Chronicle Books
• Published on: 2006-02-09
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 320 pages

Features

• 384 pages
• Manufactured to the Highest Quality Available.
• Design is stylish and innovative. Satisfaction Ensured.
• Great Gift Idea.

From Publishers Weekly
This handy pocket-sized reference, a virtual dictionary of herbs and spices, is small enough to tote along to the farmer's market, grocery or specialty spice store, and might just contain everything you ever wanted to know about seasonings. Each alphabetically listed entry includes alternate names in different languages and cuisines; explanations of the herb or spice's history, origins, aroma, flavor, physical appearance or other facts; information on storage; and a valuable section on "Food Affinities," which will help cooks understand what flavors go well together (for instance, horseradish goes nicely with "apple, beet, corned beef, cream, cream cheese, ham, lemon, potato, pumpernickel bread, raw seafood, roast beef, salmon, sour cream [and] vinegar"). Each entry also contains serving suggestions or recipes; the cannabis listing, for example, explains that fresh green marijuana leaves may be dipped into melted butter, sprinkled with salt and eaten. Other unusual profiles include those of MSG, a flavor enhancer; pink pepper; and asafetida, a "strong-smelling, even stinking, dried brownish resin" that can be unpleasant to the uninitiated. Recipes are indexed separately, which means that this great tool also doubles as a cookbook. An extensive photo insert will help shoppers identify ingredients. (Apr.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

About the Author
Aliza Green is a chef, food writer, and teacher based in Philadelphia. She's the author of Field Guide to Meat (Quirk, 2005) and Field Guide to Produce (Quirk, 2004) as well as the coauthor of the James Beard-award winning Ceviche!: Seafood, Salads, and C

Customer Reviews

Packed with information - and recipes too!
Part of a series which also includes guides to Produce, Meat, Cocktails and Stains, this useful and attractive little book contains a wealth of information on herbs from Angelica to Wild Lime Leaf and spices from Ajwain to Wasabi.

Set up like a field guide - with color plates in the center, along with the guide to the icons - each entry includes Other Names, General Description, Season, Purchase and Avoid, Storage, and Recipe.

Anyone who glances at this will find a place for it on the kitchen shelf. The recipes alone are likely to win you over, from Creole Mustard Sauce (mustard seed), Carrot Currant Salad (rosemary) and Veal with Myrtle. For those who want to try Shrimp with Calamint, say, or Indian Naan with Negella Seeds, online sources are listed at the back of the book.

The entries themselves are packed with information from origins and history to special preparations and seasonal considerations. A truly terrific little book.

--Portsmouth Herald

"Flavor Affinities" a huge help
My favorite feature of this guide is the flavor affinities list for each item. The affinities list helps with menu planning and gives you more options for the spice or herb's use. The fact that this book has actual recipes rather than serving suggestions is a bonus. I have a couple of other herb/spice guides, but am most taken with this one.

Playing in the kitchen
A recently widowed friend remarked she knew nothing about seasoning because only a few bland recipes had been acceptable for so many years. This book was the perfect gift, an introduction to informally testing out new flavors. By making groaning shelves at the market appear inviting rather than intimidating, the bright photos and common sense advice remove the mystery, making it fun to "play" in the kitchen.
This is the perfect companion to Ms. Green's "Field Guide to Produce."