Spice and Savour

I have a slightly damaged but still very presentable copy of Rosemary Hemphill’s Spice and Savour.

I learned about the book – which is arguably one this country’s most important books about using herbs and spices in cooking – when I went to one of her son’s spice education classes.

Ian Hemphill owns Herbies in Rozelle, writes and teaches about herbs and spices.

www.herbies.com.au/

My copy of Spice and Savour reminds me of how lovely it is to own a book as physical object with a particular history. Sometimes a screen can’t beat pages and ink.

One the first terracotta coloured page, underneath the book’s pencilled-in price of $7.50, there is written in a different pencil and handwriting ‘Somerset Cottage, Dural NSW, 12/2/66.’

I am unsure as to whether this is a first edition, the book having been initially published in 1964. At the back of the book the resident of Somerset Cottage has left an old newspaper clipping with a recipe for pizza napoletana. I still keep this clipping in the pages.

Anyhow Hemphill’s book covers dried herbs and their uses, spices and aromatic seeds. With the usual basil, bay, cinnamon, pepper, juniper berry and mustard seed, the author includes the more exotic (by 1960’s Australian standards at least) paprika and saffron, cumin and fennel.

Each entry profiles the spice or herb and suggests some recipes to put each ingredient to best use; at times she includes medicinal uses for herbs (such as sage hair tonic).

The book has black and white illustrations throughout by Claire Simpson, who exhibits a less flamboyant but just as charming Mirka Mora-ish style.

The book contains so many terrific recipes, but there is one that particularly caught my eye, Mango Mousse using ground ginger served with shredded coconut.