I rarely, if ever, write reviews on the many books I purchase via Amazon. After receiving this one, however, I felt I should make an exception. I admit I was not expecting too much, after all how could a book of less than 500 pages even begin to cover most or even many of the numerous food plants in use in the world? Boy, was I wrong. The amount of information packed on every page is quite remarkable, both visually, with usually multiple pictures per species, and in succint yet surprisingly comprehensive texts. Descriptions, origins and history, uses, cultivation, properties, and nutritional information are among the topics covered on every page. I am particularly grateful for the inclusion for every plant of their name(s) in several major languages (including Chinese, Japanese, French, Italian, Spanish, etc.), which, while unavoidably not complete given the often numerous regional variants within each language, is something many similar books do not even attempt to do. Obviously not every food plant in use or cultivation can be covered exhaustively in any single volume, but even the more obscure ones I encountered while traveling in Latin America are at least mentioned somewhere in descriptions of better-known related species. The many Timber Press books I own are good, but this is likely the best. I used to have to waste my time on repeated google searches when looking for basic information on tropical fruits or unusual food plants I knew nothing about; now I just open van Wyk's book.