Order "Herbs & Spices" today!

HERBS & SPICES: The Cook's Reference
By Jill Norman

ISBN 0-7894-8939-2
$30.00, Hardcover
DK Publishing, Inc.

You may have in your cook book collection a few books on herbs and maybe a few on spices - but I can guarantee you won't have a reference book as complete and beautifully illustrated as this one!  Jill Norman covers the culinary uses of both herbs and spices in one volume to help the home cook (and even the professional cook) with expert advice on how to enhance the flavor of your culinary creations.

What first attracted me to this book was the incredibly gorgeous photography by Dave King.  My next attraction to this book was the way it was organized....not alphabetically, the way other herb and spice reference books are organized, but by categories of aroma and taste....the herbs are divided into chapters titled:

Fresh and mild herbs
Sweet herbs
Citrus or tart herbs
Licorice or anise herbs
Minty herbs
Oniony herbs
Bitter or astringent herbs
Pungent and spicy herbs

The spices are similarly organized in chapters titled:

Nutty spices
Sweet spices
Acidic and fruity spices
Citrus spices
Licorice or anise spices
Warm and earthy spices
Bitter or astringent spices
Pungent spices

You might not realize the brilliance of such an organization of herbs and spices in a reference book until you decide that you want to add a particular flavor to a dish, but just don't know which herb or spice you need to use. 

In addition to the more than 120 herbs and spices and more than 500 color photographs to enhance your knowledge there is Norman's expert advice on buying, storing and harvesting.  Norman also gives you step by step instruction on how to select, prepare and cook with the correct herb and spice.  The world-wide selection of recipes and ideas from Vietnam, India and Latin America, there are recipes for making your own spice rubs, pastes, marinades, salsas, oils and flavored vinegars.