Intoxicating and evocative, vanilla is so much more than a spice rack staple. It is a flavor that has defined the entire world--and its roots reach deep into the past. With its earliest origins dating back seventy million years, the history of vanilla begins in ancient Mesoamerica and continues to define and enhance today's traditions and customs. It has been used by nearly every culture as a spice, a perfume, and even a potent aphrodisiac, while renowned figures from Louis XIV to Casanova and Thomas Jefferson have been captivated by its aroma and taste. Featuring recipes, facts, and fables, Vanilla unravels the delightfully rich history, mystery, and essence of a flavor that reconnects us to our own heritage.

Exotic Sephardi/Mizrahi cuisine from the Malabar coast of India, as developed or adapted by an ancient community of Jews who landed there 2000 years ago. These Jews are called Cochinis and most of them live today in Israel. Spices, especially the 3 Cs - cardamom, cinnamon and cumin - along with coconut, coriander and pepper dominate their cooking. The book contains plenty of fascinating historical notes along with the recipes. This book on Cochini Jewish cooking is the first of its kind in the world.

For Sarina Kamini's Kashmiri family, food is love, love is faith, and faith is family. It's cause for total emotional devastation when, ten years after her Australian mother is diagnosed with Parkinson's disease, unaddressed grief turns the spice of this young food writer's heritage to ash and her prayers to poison. At her lowest ebb. Sarina's Ammi's typed-up cooking notes become a recipe for healing, her progress in the kitchen marked by her movement through bitterness, grief and loneliness-her daal that is too fiery and lumpen; the raita, too sharp; her play with salt that pricks and burns. In teaching herself how to personalise tradition and spirituality through spice, Sarina creates space to reconsider her relationship with Hinduism and God in a way that allows room for questions. She learns forgiveness of herself for being different, and comes to accept that family means change and challenge as much as acceptance and love.