IT IS surely the ultimate testimony of a great cookbook that you salivate while perusing the pages.
Flick through Food Safari and your tastebuds will riot.
Food Safari: Glorious Adventures through a World of Cuisines, by Maeve O'Meara. Hardie Grant, rrp $55
From Greek sweet pastries, to American southern fried chicken, Sri Lankan spiced custard dessert to exotic Brazilian slow-cooked beef and pork stew, the book presents the ultimate global menu from 34 countries.
However, as beautiful and enticing as the 180 recipes are, the tome is so much more than a cookbook. It is a travel guide and an encyclopedia on the world's greatest food cultures.
If you have ever watched the SBS cult show, which the book is named after, you will know the format.
Each episode, presenter Maeve O'Meara - an award-winning food and cooking author - focuses on one culture, examining the staple ingredients, key dishes, traditions and even the etiquette, through chefs and home cooks who are from, or live in, the featured country.
In the series - and in this book - you fill find recipes from Asian cooking doyenne Charmaine Solomon, Melbourne's Italian legend Guy Grossi, as well as Spanish star MoVida's Frank Camorra.
But you don't have to be a devotee of the show to appreciate the book. Take the French chapter, for instance.
O'Meara discusses how the origin of produce is of critical importance to the French and hence labelling of regional products guarantees authenticity and quality.
Each chapter follows a similar format and, most importantly, the recipes are largely idiot-proof.
