The best books about spices

Recipes and stories explore how centuries of spice trading and cultural diffusion changed the world's cuisine. A unique and enlightening guide to cooking with spice, the book looks at their flavour profiles and how they can be used, combined, and layered - how some bring sweetness, others fragrance, heat, pungency, sourness, or earthiness.

There are 80 spice-infused recipes in this collection following the trails of ancient maritime trade through Indonesia, Malaysia, China, Vietnam, Thailand, Sri Lanka, India, Iran, and the Emirates. Eleanor combines historical research with a travel writer's eye and a cook's nose for a memorable recipe. Interwoven are stories that explore how spices from across the Indian Ocean - the original cradle of spice - have, over time, been adopted into cuisines around the world.

Recipes and stories explore how centuries of spice trading and cultural diffusion changed the world's cuisine. A unique and enlightening guide to cooking with spice, the book looks at their flavour profiles and how they can be used, combined, and layered - how some bring sweetness, others fragrance, heat, pungency, sourness, or earthiness.

There are 80 spice-infused recipes in this collection following the trails of ancient maritime trade through Indonesia, Malaysia, China, Vietnam, Thailand, Sri Lanka, India, Iran, and the Emirates. Eleanor combines historical research with a travel writer's eye and a cook's nose for a memorable recipe. Interwoven are stories that explore how spices from across the Indian Ocean - the original cradle of spice - have, over time, been adopted into cuisines around the world.

Recipes and stories explore how centuries of spice trading and cultural diffusion changed the world's cuisine. A unique and enlightening guide to cooking with spice, the book looks at their flavour profiles and how they can be used, combined, and layered - how some bring sweetness, others fragrance, heat, pungency, sourness, or earthiness.

There are 80 spice-infused recipes in this collection following the trails of ancient maritime trade through Indonesia, Malaysia, China, Vietnam, Thailand, Sri Lanka, India, Iran, and the Emirates. Eleanor combines historical research with a travel writer's eye and a cook's nose for a memorable recipe. Interwoven are stories that explore how spices from across the Indian Ocean - the original cradle of spice - have, over time, been adopted into cuisines around the world.

The lush, sun-drenched vineyards of California evoke a romantic, agrarian image of winemaking, though in reality, the industry reflects American agribusiness at its most successful. Nonetheless, this fantasy is deeply rooted in the history of grape cultivation in America. Empire of Vines traces the development of wine culture as grape growing expanded from New York to the Midwest before gaining ascendancy in California--a progression that illustrates viticulture's centrality to the nineteenth-century American projects of national expansion and the formation of a national culture.

The Easy Indian Cookbook is a book that’s sold globally even in India and does what it says on the cover. There’s an image of the dish for each recipe and at the back there are menu suggestions on what to cook and how to plan your cooking schedule. This globally sold cookbook has also been translated into several languages and I still refer to it as my Indian cooking guide whenever I teach novice spice cooks.

Did medieval hermits really eat wild grass, roots, and tree bark? Why were people who led reclusive religious lives apparently indifferent to food? This book explores monastic attitudes to food and fasting, opens the lid on how monks and hermits prepared and ate their food, and places them in the context of new ideas and technologies of cookery in the medieval world.

Saturnalia is a fantasy thriller set in a near-future Philadelphia, where extreme weather, a collapsing economy, and feverish summers erode the historic city, and where the feast of Saturnalia is a yearly spectacle. 

Since leaving the elite Saturn Club, Nina has eked out a living by telling fortunes with her tarot deck, an initiation gift from the Club. When she gets a chance call from Max, one of the Saturn Club’s best-connected members and her last remaining friend, the favor he asks will plunge her back into the Club’s wild solstice masquerade, on a mysterious errand she cannot say no to.

Within the Circle chronicles my experiences as an anthropologist living with a family in a small Syrian village. Most days I spent with two sisters married to two brothers and their ten children ranging in age from toddlers to a fifteen-year-old. Our days were consumed with cooking and cleaning and supervising the chores and homework activities of the children. The book describes the life of these families, with a focus on their parenting practices. As a mother of three grown sons reared according to the American Dr. Spock model, I could see in our divergent styles, clues to differences in cultural outlook. The book is an effort to understand the thinking of these Syrian families about childrearing and the life’s challenges for which these parents prepare their children.

School reunions: the perfect opportunity to catch up with old friends, dazzle old foes, and basically show everyone that your life could not be going better. But for Lucas O’Rourke and Posy Edwins this isn’t quite the case. Lucas is about to lose his business, and Posy’s father has cut her off financially. And a reunion is the worst moment to come face-to-face with your rival. Ten years ago, they hated each other, what could have changed since then?

As tensions rise, Posy comes up with a plan to solve both their problems, all she needs to do is persuade Lucas to go along with it. Trouble is, how do you ask your high school enemy to pretend you’re madly in love when everyone knows you don’t get along?

Straight out of the sewers and right into the kitchen, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles' favorite pizzas are finally yours to create and enjoy! Join Leonardo, Raphael, Donatello, and Michelangelo on a seriously ooey, gooey, cheesy adventure inspired by the beloved original cartoon series.

This cookbook contains sixty-five righteous recipes, from old-school classics such as the New York Style Pepperoni to newfangled feasts such as the Lean, Mean, and Green and Shredder's Revenge. There's a pizza for every occasion — breakfast pizzas, mini-pizzas, party pizzas, and even dessert pizzas.