'Let food be your medicine, and medicine your food.' Hippocrates' dictum is followed by many traditional cultures. Similarly, 'functional foods' are becoming increasingly popular in the West. Pieroni (ethnobotany/pharmacognosy, U. of Bradford, UK) and Price (sociology, Wageningen U., the Netherlands) introduce 16 chapters focusing on food and beverage sources used for medicinal purposes and their interface with health concepts, social roles, and farming methods. Multidisciplinary contributors present case studies of, and scientific findings on, practices ranging from Tibetan use of antioxidant-containing foods to the practice of Traditional Chinese Medicine in the US. Annotation ©2006 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)