Customer Reviews

A Busy Cook's Guide to Spices: How to Introduce New Flavors to Everyday Meals

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Linda Murdock's superb "A Busy Cook's Guide to Spices: How to Introduce New Flavors to Everyday Meals" is a long-overdue examination of spice and herb flavors. Ms. Murdock approaches the subject from a fresh angle by going through the most common herbs and spices and telling the reader how these can be used or combined in common dishes--or what they most effectively enhance. This is an excellent way to teach readers how to start building a dish from the spice or herb upward, instead of just saying, "Yeah, yeah, yeah, throw some cinnamon into that apple pie." Instead we learn that cinnamon enhances a wide variety of dishes other than the traditional baked goods.

Ms. Murdock combines an encyclopedic knowledge of herbs and spices with recipes, substitutions, and a plain-speaking voice. She even gets into common sauces (Worcestershire sauce, chutneys and the like)--themselves combinations of herbs and spices. She tells us when to use these flavorings (at the beginning of the dish, during, or added at the end just before serving), gives advice on what herbs or spices go with the one she's talking about at the moment, and provides fascinating folklore and history. I haven't seen this useful a cookbook in a long time and highly recommend it.

This book is wonderful for a person like me who doesn't have a lot of back ground in combining spices/flavorings and foods.

The first part of the book reviews pretty much all the spices I'd ever want to consider using. There's a page for each flavoring. For example, ginger, I now know that I should add ginger in the middle or the end of the cooking process. I didn't know that. Also, Ms. Murdock includes interesting "folklore/history" of each flavoring.

The second part of the book covers many foods and which spices or flavoring go best with each food. So when I bought some lamb recently, all I had to do was check out the page relating to lamb to receive wonderful info on how to cook it, which seasoning go best with lamb and I even found some preparation ideas. This is so great and easy to use too.

She also provides numerous tables and charts. For example, she includes a flavor subsitutions chart. So when I need curry, but don't have any, I can use cumin, mustard, allspice and black pepper to get a similar result. She also provides a table summarizing which wines go best with each seasoning.

Thanks Linda!

Not your typical cookbook with pictures and recipes, this is more of a quick reference. You can look up ideas, recipes and seasoning matches organized by what you have on hand in the cupboards. Lots of interesting folklore (for when you have more time to read). Tips for matching wine and beer with food and seasonings. Very unique info that is not easily found.

I really like this book! I tend to make up my own recipes, sometimes beginning with someone else's or just from scratch. This book gives me great ideas for the right spices to add. I especially like the "Foods and flavorings that go with them" section for those times when I know the disk needs something, but I'm just not quite sure what. The historical remedies and folklore/history on each spice is also very interesting.

I've cooked for many years, professionally for a while, and didn't fully understand the hows and whys of spices. Linda has put together a cooks resource that should be in every kitchen. Put a lot of spice in your life and cooking, and do it most effectively with this guide. Be sure to get the spiral version...it works best on the kitchen counter.

I think Ms Murdock did an excellent job in her research of spices and herbs. I use her book as a source of new flavors to try and to get more information on familiar flavors. I especially like the folklore/history section. I have purchased a couple of the books for gifts and will likely be giving more volumes in the future.

I loved this book (and I don't cook). The design is great and content supurb. This is not a recipe book (although some recipes are included). First half of the book is done by spice, one page per spice/herb. Second half of the book is by food (pork, beef, potato, beans, etc). The charts included in this book are outstanding and of great value to any cook.

My fave part of the book is the historical trivia about each spice. THAT alone makes for a fun read. Do you know how pirates came to be called buccaneers? When was the last time you read a "cook" book that entertained as well as informed?!

Only negative comment: I wish the few recipes that are included were indexed. The recipes are in the food section under whatever their main ingredient is. When thumbing back through I don't know which ingredient the author thought it best listed under. The rest of the book is indexed very well. Great addition to any kitchen.

This book, which focuses exclusively on spices, is a valuable resource. It's 220 pages with an introduction revealing that the author gets bored with the same food every week, and likes to cook by taste rather than by recipe (sounds like a lot of us!). We get a comprehensive 3-page section on Frequently-Asked-Questions, a 1-page history of spices, and a 1-page list of cooking terminology.

Then we're into Part One which lists each spice alphabetically by name, describes its tastes, gives instructions on how to use it, suggests other flavors to mix with it, gives its color and shape, lists historical remedies and folklore, and provides its origin (e.g., Allspice comes from the berries of an evergreen tree of the myrtle family and is native to Jamaica and Central America).

Part Two is where you can look up common foods (from Apples to Zucchini) and find out which recommended spices to use with each food and how to prepare it. Not only that, this book doesn't just stick with the powders that we normally think of as spices such as cinnamon, salt, and pepper. It provides conclusive information on all those weird commercial blends like Liquid Smoke and Five-Spice Powder that most of us never really know enough about to risk picking them up at the grocery store. Other flavorings that get covered: coffee, herbs, and vinegars.

My only regrets: not much illustration, just the very occasional black-and-white small photo or line drawing. Also, as a cookbook, this one feels a little flimsy (especially in light of how much I'll be using it). It's a paperback with a fairly large spiral binding which means that the book lies flat (good), but also that the pages slide around when you're trying to turn them (not so good). But that's a small price to pay for the information.

I do not know much about using herbs and this author wrote this book from trial and error, on how to use on everyday same old thing meals, to get something different. There is wonderful information on each herb, when to put it in the recipe, if it is left to long and is to spicy what to do. Towards the back, are some simple recipes to get you using the herbs.

I already tried one recipe, and it turned out perfect, which if anything could go wrong it would. What I liked about this recipe from other recipe books, if it says it is going to be done in a certain time, it is and it is perfect. All other cookbooks, give approximate time and maybe or maybe not it will be done.

It, also, gives you more confidence to experiment with recipes and herbs, which I lacked.

Did I, also, tell you I purchased 2 more of these books for gifts.

I saw this book on display at a cooking store and thought it would be good to add to my collection for two reasons. (1) I was making a career change and going to culinary school, and (2) it looked like an all-around good reference. Since buying it I've taken a quick peak at it whenever I prepare something (or eat something) new. It's got just about everything, including things other than spices, like meats and pastas. My only issue with it is the descriptions are very brief. Overall, it's been helpful as a reference for things I haven't worked with before, and how to pair them.