Tom Stobart's award-winning Herbs Spices and Flavourings has long been recognized as the authoritative work on the subject. It is a truly amazing source of information covering, alphabetically, over 400 different herbs, spices, and flavorings found throughout the world and based on the extensive notes he made on his travels in 70 countries. Each entry carries detailed descriptions of the origin, history, magical, medicinal, scientific and culinary uses, together with a thorough assessment of tastes and effects of cooking, freezing and pickling. The author assigns the scientific, botanical, native and popular names for given plants and ingredients making exact identification easy and clearing up any confusions which may exist on differing countries' names and usages. No other work in print has ever covered with such exhausting precision this important subject making this work of reference essential for all cooks, gardeners and horticulturists.