Usually, a book of recipes is not one that I manage to completely read and review. It is hard to gauge how to talk about a book like this. This time around, when I started reading this book, I was pleasantly surprised by its format and content.
It has a lot more non-vegetarian content than is required by me, despite which I think this is a pretty great book to have on my shelf (it still exists solely on my virtual shelf- but it is the thought that counts). There are several things I can talk about when it comes to the content, and I will do it in the order of what appealed to me.
First, there was the listing of all the spices with the kind of flavour they provide to any dish. The listing is nuanced and extensive, making it interesting reading even for someone who uses a huge chunk of the spices on a daily basis. I do not buy readymade blends and prefer to make my own for different dishes, and this definitely piqued my interest.
Then there was the history itself. The author wove in the idea of the mingling of cultures and how trade and travel brought about gradual changes in different places. It is not a complete history of all spices, but it has enough to satisfy an average enthusiast.
Finally, the recipes are all very varied, and as I mentioned earlier, several of them were not of much use to me, but they will be for anyone with an adventurous palate.
Overall this is a book I would highly recommend for foodie readers!
I received an ARC thanks to Netgalley and the publishers, but the review is entirely based on my own reading experience.

A better bet for carnivores than this vegetarian, and hardback, not digital, for visual delight.

No disrespect to the author, I think most may be much happier with this than I could be. I was expecting something different, is all. I read a lot of books about food, and the history of food and cooking, which are not necessarily recipe books. And this is what I was expecting here. A text-book, which could be happily read on digital device.

This is a kind of hybrid. It has SOME recipes – not that many, not enough to be a recipe book. It has a lot of clearly sumptuous and beautiful photos, but I always want visuals in a proper, touchable, turnable page form. Something gets lost for me staring at a screen.

There wasn’t enough ‘story’ for me, not as much history and reflection as I wanted, and the way recipes are laid out and scattered through the book make it unworkable as a recipe book. Plus the fact a lot are flesh based. And then, there is always the problem with clearly coffee table, picture heavy, recipe books that there very sumptuous, often glossy-paged beauty needs keeping well out of the kitchen. Unlike my groaning shelves of decades-a-gathering pictureless recipe books, several recipes to a page, beautifully splashed with evidence of what’s been followed, annotated with my comments on every recipe used, adaptations tried, etc.

Had I known in advance this was more coffee table book than either recipe book or purely historical food book, I would not have requested this as digital

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

What a gorgeous book this turned out to be. The graphics are beautiful and plentiful. It was packed full of all kinds of interesting information about spices, their history, where they come from, how to prepare them, layering flavor, etc. On top of that, we get a plethora of delicious sounding recipes from around the world. So far I have tried the "Egg & Bacon Rougaille" from Mauritius (it was amazing), and "Kebabs from Babur" (also amazing). I can't wait to try out more! This would make a perfect addition to any foodies cookbook library! Two HUGE thumbs up from yours truly.

**ARC Via NetGalley**

The world's obsession with spices is a long one and in this more global age it is relatively easy get hold of even quite obscure flavourings. However this wasn't always the case and at times in history spices became literally worth their weight in gold.
In this book Ford weaves the story of spices around an exploration of their flavour profiles and illustrates with some wonderful sounding recipes. As a cookbook I feel it works well but I am less convinced by the academic slant in terms of the history and geography. The photographs are wonderful though!

Lovely book with a wide variety of spice information to learn about, as I leafed through this book, it soon became apparent that it wasn't just a book of recipes, oh no, it's beautiful photographs show case it as much more than that.

Intertwining history of spices and the botany aspect what we actually have here in this book is much more than you realise upon the first glance, the recipes make you want to grab a pan and a handful of spices, it set my inspiration and creativity on edge, I can't wait to have a copy of this in my hands and get started with some of the recipes I've got picked out for myself.

I really enjoyed traveling around the world with this author and discovering the spices that are so famous in many dishes I've experienced, each spice has been placed in a region and I liked that informative side of the book!

Many thanks to Netgalley and the publishers for the chance to read this free ARC in return for my review. I really enjoyed it!

It was an informative, interesting, and useful read as I like using spices when cooking or preparing conctions.
There's a lot of information, recipes, and it well written.
Highly recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine

What an amazing book. Spice detective work and historical facts that simply blew my mind. I cannot wait for this to be released so hatbi can purchase copies for myself and my friends. Highly recommend this book.
The recipes are so well researched but anyone can produce recipes, to me this is a book full of little known facts that introduce many new spices that I cannot wait to see if I can purchase to try them.

Upon requesting this, I've assumes it was going to be a non-fiction about spices, covering the history of spices, trade routes, some botany etc. Discovering it's in fact a cookery book left me very disappointed. But, as I've started leafing through it , I've completely changed my mind.

What we have here is a very lush cook book, with some fabulous recipes that I would like to try someday. But saying this is a cookbook doesn't do it justice because it is so much more that that. It covers a bit of history and botany(just as I wanted), an overview of the spices we love so much. It also looks at the intricacies of cultures and food and how they are irrevocably connected, in a way a true form of peaceful globalisation. The presentation is gorgeous too, and I was already fantasising about the glossiness of the physical book, that I would definitely buy for myself.

I'm not a great cook by any means but this publication definitely made me feel closer to the art. I also an of Indian descent so learning about the spices that heavily influence out food palettes were very much insightful. The graphics were absolutely stunning adding such interest and appreciation tot he entire publication. Thank you for the e-ARC!

Thank you to the publishers and NetGalley for providing me with an electronic arc to read and review.

I have not fully read this book nor tried any of the delicious sounding recipes because I found it difficult to read the pdf copy. However, it looks so wonderfully colourful, the sections I read were extremely informative and the recipes look so good I am definitely going to buy myself a hard copy when it is published. I could almost smell the aromas just from looking at the pictures.

A detailed and thoroughly interesting book. Each spice gets a short history about it and these are all fascinating. There are plenty of recipes under each spice and many of these look tasty and easy to make - some familiar, some distinctly not. Ingredients are, mostly, easy to find even if only through the web as far as I'm concerned but many will already be in kitchen cupboards/shelves; a few will be being grown at home, or could be. The real frustration was because the book was pre-publication so the mixed up paragraphs, changes of font mid-word and so on should be sorted by publication. This is not reflected in my score. Thanks to NetGalley and Murdoch Books for an advance copy in exchange for my honest review.

This is quite tricky to judge as an ebook, but I imagine it must be a lovely physical book and an excellent gift. It would suit an experienced cook though as many of the recipes are quite fiddly. I liked the background, although I thought it would be about nutmeg and not all spices - I think the title is a little misleading.

Definitely more of a cookbook than a history book, The Nutmeg Trail explores the world's most sought after spices throughout history. Between each mini history lesson is a selection of recipes that include the featured spice, starting with ginger and making way towards lemongrass and rose petals.

I genuinely enjoyed this. The interweaving of history between each recipe kept me browsing and there was more than one recipe I bookmarked for later. Ford has done her homework, and the historical background of each spice is easy to follow without being watered down.

I would definitely recommend this to anyone interested in cooking and cuisine.

From the title of the book, you might think it is only about nutmeg. However, it includes recipes made with many different spices. The reader will find recipes originating in many countries gathered into chapters featuring one particular spice. The photography is curiously old fashioned and doesn't do the recipes justice. This is definitely a book for a cook with some experience, not a beginner who is looking to expand their repertoire.

This is a beautiful book. It is a mixture of history, geography and recipes. It covers lots of different spices, not just nutmeg, is beautifully illustrated, and each spice and region has been covered.

I really enjoyed it, and it is the sort of book that makes a great present.

A stunningly colourful book which not only provides the reader with the background and history to various spices and herbs but also some very tempting recipes to try. Gorgeous colour photos accompany most of the recipes which give inspiration to different combinations of spices plus pairing with different foods. I can't wait to try a few out and see this book in book form which is the format I prefer for cookery books and once my kitchen is usable again from a refit. Especially tempting are the Scallops with Ginger and Black Pepper and the Green Peppercorn Asparagus once that season arrives.

As an avid cook I love using spices and it is extremely interesting to learn more about their varied history and uses. The recipes are categorised by types of spices, which can make it harder to find what you are looking for. A good selection of very varied recipes, more complex than some cookbooks.

Almost more of a history book than a recipe one – or, to quote, "a project of gastronomic archaeology" – this takes us through all the different Spice Routes – not so much the camel-led land-based one but certainly the much more trackless, dangerous and much-forgotten nautical ones – and tries to show us how each and every spice was cooked with, lauded, exported, sold and commodified, and in seemingly necessary woke mood, how we should take a bite to think about how the world history has been changed as a result.

Luckily, hair shirts and wrung hands aren't fully in fashion, and we're instead given much of a primer when it comes to spices – how they act differently under different conditions, when to add them to dishes, what the full flavour profile is, and so on. Spice mixes of the world will surely mention a few, if not a majority, that you've not heard of. And then, finally – page 50 in fact – we're away with the dishes, first seeing how ginger can be used, as bed for minced chicken, poached eggs, mackerel and so much more. Peppers are next, and then the two are combined, and so on – with asides to cover the history of the kebab, and suchlike.

What this means is the obligatory lifestyle porn of so many cookbooks is dropped, and the usual patter of how this was the author's cousin Johnny's favourite dish back when he was a she and how she used to love waiting for her grandfather to come in from the month away with the herd of llamas and knock it all up as a traditional family feast, has been replaced with both history – who it was first cooking this kind of thing – and the science of the spice.

And instead of taking romance and heart out of cooking, science is what you need when it comes to spice. I am sure, even before trying any of this stuff out, that a lot could have gone wrong without this careful and well-written set of recipes. Every one gets the anglicised name, the original name and source of derivation, and the blurb discussing all the context, before we crack on with raiding the spice racks. What there is not, which was actually a big pity for me, aware of how susceptible my partner's guts would seem to be with anything with a kick, is any kind of spice rating. There's a solitary nod to it when the variability of chilli crops up, but I'd have to try these dishes at least once before sharing, which is common sense for a dinner party but not a bog average Wednesday teatime, and not when a whole chicken is concerned.

I know what Uncle Roger says, that there is "the right amount" and "the white amount", but this lack of even attempting to give a scale to things here was a big flaw. We all know, if we go to a Thai takeaway here, you can ask for the spice level – po' white person, traveller, or native – and how there is a huge difference between each. These dishes we are told are authentic, and I fully believe that, and I am sure I would get to love them a lot, but for that daunting hurdle of still having to experiment with levels before this gets the completely useful badge of approval. Seasoned pros (pun unavoidable) who know their way round this stuff could judge and use this from the off, the rest of us less so. I was left with some admirable-seeming recipes to try in some future time, but too much doubt for a fully positive rating.

This is such a beautiful book; far more than another collection of recipes!
Not only are we given a wide range of information about spices but the presentation with colourful pages and photographs makes this a wonderful book to enjoy even when not ready to cook. Having only seen this copy as a PDF so far I cannot say that I have read it thoroughly or tried many of the recipes BUT this is already on my wish list to buy when the physical book copy comes on sale .... and that is High praise indeed. I'm looking forward to trying out the food and buying more spices!

A fascinating look at the world of spices, once considered more precious than gold. Ford takes readers around the globe to introduce readers to the spices we have on our kitchen shelves to some we have never even heard of. Folklore and history meet, along with some very tempting recipes in this fascinating and beautiful book