The illustrations play a particularly large part in this book, and the artist, Charlotte Knox, is given equal billing on the covers of both the British and the American editions. The book is described by its publisher as "An illustrated guide to fruits and vegetables from the world's hotter climates." Grigson added notes on the choice, preparation, and culinary use of each fruit or vegetable, and recipes using them. These include mango and carambola salad, mango and paw paw tart, persimmon fudge, and grey mullet with pomegranate sauce in the fruit chapters, and in the vegetable sections, plantain and chicken, snake gourd Malay style, drumstick curry with prawns, and yam and goat meat pottage. The book concludes with sections on 14 herbs and spices, from banana leaf to turmeric.