Cook's Encyclopedia of Spices (Hardcover)

~ Sallie Morris (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

This fabulous encyclopedia of spices is not only a practical cookbook but an invaluable and expert kitchen reference.

About the Author

Sallie Morris is a food writer and consultant. She has lived in Kenya and Malaysia and has run cookery courses in both countries. Sallie has contributed to many magazines and books, including The World Encyclopedia of Spices and Taste of Indonesia. Travelling, exploring markets and eating in order to collect recipes for her own pleasure and for her books have taken her to Thailand, Burma, Indonesia, China, India and recently, Vietnam. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 256 pages
• Publisher: Lorenz Books (October 25, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0754812286
• ISBN-13: 978-0754812289
• Product Dimensions: 11.7 x 9.1 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #2,149,534 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Spicey information!, January 26, 2002

By	Deborah Allhiser (Standish, CA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Cook's Encyclopedia of Spices (Cook's Encyclopedias) (Paperback)

I thoroughly enjoyed,and still enjoy, this book! I was looking for a book with spice information to have available for my customers - and this book fit the bill. The book has a "clean" look, with clear descriptions of the many spices included in it's pages. I found the information to be thorough, and the pictures are fantastic!
This book is loaded with information on individual spices, but it also gives recipes for spice combinations as well as recipes from breads to desserts that include a variety of spices that are both common and a little more exotic.
"The Cook's Encyclopedia of Spices" had what I was looking for, and then some, without being overwhelming.
I feel that any chef, or weekend cooking warrior, would find this book helpful.

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good text and pictures. Other books are better., November 22, 2005

By	B. Marold "Bruce W. Marold" (Bethlehem, PA United States) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

Amazon Verified Purchase

`The Cook's Encyclopedia of Spices' by English authors, Sallie Morris and Lesley Mackley appears, on the surface, to be a very attractive and informative book on spices and how to use them. Unfortunately, it stumbles on a couple of important points and it is up against some first class competition.

It's primary shortcoming is that it limits itself to only spices and does not deal with what most people on both sides of the Atlantic would call herbs. I consider this a shortcoming because the authors include many recipes for `spice mixes' which are mixes as much of dried herbs as they are of spices. The Cajun spice mix, for example, includes dried thyme. The barbecue spice mixtures include dried marjoram. And, the `Old-fashioned Philadelphia Spice Powder includes both dried basil and dried thyme. The coverage is even more confusing in that the book does cover both bay leaves and fenugreek leaves. By virtually everyone's definition, any leaf used in cooking is an herb, not a spice.

A second annoying shortcut is that the articles on spices are arranged in alphabetical order by their scientific name. Sacre Bleu! I am all in favor of stressing the importance of knowing the scientific names of plants giving us culinary products, but arranging things by scientific name which no one except a biologist is likely to know is foolish. The authors repair their error somewhat by giving us a table of contents in common name order, but who wants to take two lookup steps when one should do.

A third annoyance is the fact that almost half of the book is dedicated to recipes that use spices. In a very attractively photographed book with decent text on its subject, this is a total waste of space, especially for someone who has even the most modest collection of cookbooks. Virtually every savory recipe uses herbs or spices of some sort. If you include salt as a spice (which the authors do), virtually every recipe on earth, with the possible exception of Tuscan bread, uses a spice or herb. I would want a good spice book to give a good selection of spices mixes, but if I want a recipe, I would simply not bother going to a book on spices before going to a book on French cooking or fish cooking or fast cooking or fastidious (See `Cooks Illustrated' or Alton Brown) cooking.

The shame of it is that the authors have gone to great lengths to provide the book with very good illustrations and very decent text on the spices it covers. In fact, I get the sense that the authors have overdone it a bit with the color pics. For the spice mixture recipes, they provide little pictures of each and every ingredient, over and over and over again. It also manages to cover a fair variety of spices, although not as great a variety as its competition.

The best competition I have seen recently is Tony Hill's `The Contemporary Encyclopedia of herbs & spices' which covers a lot more different species and does it with an entertainingly personal look at the world's condiments. Another excellent volume is Jill Norman's `herbs & spices, the cook's reference'. Of the two, the second is better for the creative cook and the first is better for the armchair foodie / reader. Both have excellent spice mix recipes and they complement one another so well I suggest you get both books.

Pretty, but not highly recommended.

5.0 out of 5 stars exelente libro bueno para cualquier chef, November 18, 2002

By	leo shaki (eilat, israel Israel) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Cook's Encyclopedia of Spices (Cook's Encyclopedias) (Paperback)

exelente libro de cocina la verdad que estoy muy contento por comprarlo muy bueno para chef y personas que quieran saber mas de condimentos