The world’s most storied fruit is also among its most versatile cooking ingredients. In these pages, writer and NPR contributor Frank Browning delves into the apple’s long history and his own upbringing on a Kentucky apple orchard, and food writer Sharon Silva recalls her childhood on a Sonoma family farm. Together, they pay homage to the ancient fruit of temptation in this charming illustrated companion to apple and cider cookery.

An Apple Harvest is an inviting compendium of more than sixty apple-centric recipes from Alsace to Appalachia, Moscow to Morocco, Bayeux to Berkeley. The feast opens with first courses such as Duck Breast and Fuji Apples on Watercress and Parsnip and Cider Soup, and continues with main dishes like Baltic Roast Goose with Sour Apples and Atlantic Salmon Fillets in Cider-Mustard Sauce. Among the side dishes are classics like Real Applesauce and the curiously named Burning Love. And, of course, an apple book requires a respectable showing of desserts. Bourbon Apple Pie, Classic Tarte Tatin, and Apple Sorbet with Ginger are just three of the tempting offerings.

Browning and Silva pepper the collection with spirited musings on whether to peel apples for pies and how to choose apples and store them properly. In a photographic field guide, they share more than two dozen of their favorite apple varieties and detail eating and cooking characteristics, storage qualities, peak season, and growing regions.

Engaging storytelling and evocative photography make An Apple Harvest a celebration of the iconic fruit. Stock your pantry with cider and apples and discover for yourself the wildly varied savory and sweet dishes that Braeburns, Cortlands, Macouns, and their brethren can bring to the table.