Is it sweet, pungent, tangy or hot?

From allspice and ginger to garlic and thyme, can you imagine a world without spices? What if there was no such thing as vanilla ice cream, cinnamon buns or the aromatic flavor of juniper in gin? Or meals without Worcestershire sauce, mustard, pickles, and chili sauce? For thousands of years, human beings have been adding precious amounts of spice to food to make it more appetizing and even succulent.

Thanks to The Spice and Herb Bible: A Cook's Guide, the unique new information-packed cooking reference (published by Robert Rose, Inc. and distributed by Firefly Books) people who love delicious food have the perfect resource to help them create any taste sensation they can imagine – and discover everything there is to know about herbs and spices. 

Written by Ian Hemphill, a man who grew up on an herb farm and then spent 30 more years working in the herb and spice industry, The Spice and Herb Bible offers readers a rich potpourri of information along with expert cooking guidance and tantalizing recipes. It features an A-to-Z listing (by the English name) of more than 95 herbs and spices. Each entry provides a basic description of the herb or spice, its origin and history and detailed recommendations for purchase, storage and use – including a fantastic recipe to try! And easy-to-use sidebars list each subject's other common names, its botanical name, its family, and names in other languages.

Boasting 32 pages of vibrant full-color photographs, The Spice and Herb Bible makes it easy for people to identify and purchase delicious herbs and spices. What's more, readers will be captivated by The Spice and Herb Bible's other fact-filled sections, such as:

• a detailed history of the spice trade, covering from 2600 BC to present

• an educational primer explaining the difference between spices and herbs and providing facts about how to buy, store, and use fresh and dried spices and herbs

• a section describing the various spice mixtures used to create some of the world's most popular tastes and blends, such as barbecue spices, baharat and berbere

• a chapter grouping the entries according to whether they're sweet, pungent, tangy, hot, and/or amalgamating

Culinary teachers will appreciate how this innovative resource also includes a bibliography and detailed index. The Spice and Herb Bible is sure to become a favorite of everyone interested in the planet earth's magic kingdom of incredibly diverse aromas and flavors. 

After growing up working in his family's spice business in Australia, author Ian Hemphill managed a spice company for many years. Then he and his wife opened a specialty shop in Sydney with the largest selection of herbs and spices for sale in the Southern Hemisphere today.