Fruit: A Connoisseur's Guide and Cookbook

This book is an illustrated dictionary of just about all of the fruits and nuts in the world. Each entry covers a family of closely related fruits, such as grapes, raisins, white raisins and currents. The entry includes a full page color illustration of the fruits in the family. The illustrations are tremendously useful for identifying less familiar fruits such as cape gooseberries or langsats. Many of the illustrations also include foliage or peels to help with identification. The illustrations are so well done that each one is worthy of framing as art. The written article for each entry includes information about where and how the fruit is cultivated or consumed. In the margin are the Latin scientific names for the fruits and common names for the fruits in just about any language that has a name for the fruit, including in most cases French, German, and Spanish, but also less widely known languages where the fruit is eaten or grown, such as Japanese, Hebrew, Turkish, Hindi, Indonesian, or Thai. At the end of the book are about 40 pages of recipes for fruits and nuts, which are also noted in the margins for each individual entry. The book includes an extensive bibliography and index with scientific names, common names, and recipes. I would recommend this book as an essential reference for libraries. But it's useful for anyone who wants to know about fruits, where they came from, and what they look like.