Spiced : Recipes Celebrating Spices from Around the World - Priya Mani & Harold McGee

A modern guide to cooking with spices, featuring over 300 globally inspired recipes designed for home cooks.

Elevate your everyday cooking with this comprehensive and visually stunning celebration of spices from around the world. Spiced focuses on 50 key spices, offering an in-depth look at each. Home cooks will find romance from Central and South America, cardamom from India, grains of paradise from West Africa, nutmeg from the Banda Islands, and more, all accompanied by texts that cover the spice's history, origin, and impact on global cuisine.

Each entry includes a series of recipes in which the spice plays a leading role, showcasing a mix of traditional and modern dishes—from Risotto alla Milanese (saffron), Jollof rice (gourd nutmeg), Massaman curry (white cardamom), chicken paprikash (chili), Touba coffee (Selim beans), golden milk (turmeric), and Eggnog (nutmeg). The book also includes 20 recipes for spice blends, including garam masala, Chinese five-spice, baharat, and ras el hanout, evoking the distinctive flavors of regions around the world.

Part recipe collection, part culinary history, Spiced provides a fascinating cultural context for its subject. Author and food historian Priya Mani offers insightful information on the complex history and origins of spices, inviting home cooks to consider the evolving flavors that have shaped today's culinary landscape and to expand their palates by adding new spices to their pantry.

With a preface on the science of spices by Harold McGee, there are historical essays sprinkled throughout the book written by Andrew Dalby, Dr. Anna Spudich and Ken Albala, as well as personal essays from a list of chefs and food writers, including Petty Elliot, Susan Jung, Virgilio Martínez, Kamal Mouzawak, Nanna Rögnak, valdardótt tir and Ozoz Sokoh.

Beautifully photographed and thoughtfully designed, Spiced is an essential kitchen shelf for contemporary cooks.