The Encyclopedia of Herbs and Spices

This is a mouth-watering and monumental work – two large volumes totaling over 1,100 pages. Despite the word order of the title, the emphasis of The Encyclopedia of Herbs & Spices is on spices, and only aromatic herbs are included – those which “impart flavour, aroma and taste”. Herbs which are only used for medicinal purposes, such as echinacea or black cohosh, are not covered.

The text consists of 240 entries for spices/herbs, usually of about four pages in the following format: sketch drawing, taxonomy including variant and regional names, introduction, botanical notes, chemical notes, functional properties, uses – medicinal,...