Spice of Life
Some home cooks have a spice game that is what I might describe as… “elevated,” or “inspired.” Perhaps “badass” gives a clearer picture. You may know one of these beautifully geeked-out culinary alchemists. They’re pretty easy to spot if you do a little recon on the kitchen. And if you actually cook with one of these obsessive technicians, you’ll see it almost instantly. One potential giveaway…the majority of their spices are in small glass jars that are home-labeled. This is because they shop in markets that sell spices in self-serve fishbowl size containers, or they buy more exotic spices in bulk. Somewhere out of sight, there’s an impractically huge bag of whole cloves squirreled away in a dark cool closet. Other dead giveaways can include:
Glass jars with labels for spice blends like “Cajun,” “Masala,” “Adobo,” or “Za’atar”. These have been perfected over years of trial and error. “You will never find the recipe!”
Multiple electric spice grinders used to separate “curry” spices from “Mediterranean” from “barbecue” and so on. “In what universe is it okay to taint the spices from one region with the leftover aroma from spices originating in another?!”
A pair of tweezers beside a small golden tin of Spanish saffron. “You want me to use my fingers?!”
Jars with spices you’ve heard of but weren’t really sure if anyone actually uses them, like fenugreek, turmeric, and allspice. “Not sure what all the fuss is here, the right spice is the right spice!”
A cluster of paprika jars that includes Spanish, Hungarian, smoked, and sweet. “Do you REALLY need an explanation?!”
If you think you’ve been introduced to one of these spice hounds, scout the rest of the cookware and the cookbook collection. Books focusing on regions of Central or South America, Turkey, North Africa, India and other such beautiful places—these will confirm your suspicions.
Keep these people in your life and, at any cost, find a way to get to their dinner table.
It’s no secret that spices changed our world. Humanity’s insatiable demand for these magical materials made men rich, sank fleets, started wars, built empires, destroyed cities, forged alliances, and fundamentally changed the way humans eat. To this day, spices give artistic and cultural expression to food in a way that is just impossible by any other means. In the hands of a practiced cook, spices create colors on the plate that tease the imagination with variation, texture, and depth. They can round out the experience on the palette, add depth and intricacy to the flavor profile, and create cravings with the right amount of heat. When I push myself on my spices, taking the time to do it right, dinner guests look almost stunned by the aroma that shrouds them as they walk into the house. That spontaneous look of amazement is priceless.
While I can’t claim to be a true spice hound, after 30+ years of cooking I’m still pushing myself in this area. Most recently, I got a little boost in my spice work because of a trip to Cleveland. Yep…I said “Cleveland.”
Our family went out to Forest City to visit friends and celebrate one of their kids moving on to college. During the visit, we headed down to Ohio City and I got pulled into Penzey’s Spices on the corner of Lorain and West 25th. Admittedly, the shop was a little precious and a little too “corporate clean” at first glance…but after a few minutes I realized this place was no joke. They are serious about spices and I left with more than a few jars. One of the things I loved was almost every spice was offered in a tiny jar option, something small that didn’t threaten to linger and take up space in the cabinet for a couple of years before you throw it away. This simple offering of a tiny jar flips the bulk-spice model on its head and encourages experimentation. At the counter, the woman ringing up my order said that my purchase earned me a free sample of one of their own blends, the “Northwoods” seasoning. I graciously accepted, thinking to myself, “What the hell am I going to do with some prefab blend of whatever?!”
Holy spice blend Batman, was I wrong! Check out this list of ingredients:
Coarse flake salt, Hungarian sweet paprika, Tellicherry black pepper, thyme, cracked rosemary, granulated garlic, and chipotle.
Did I mention these folks were serious? This blend is phenomenal, and their Cajun spice stands up pretty well too.
It wasn’t long after my trip to the 2-1-6 that my first Penzey’s collection started to dwindle, so I decided I’d try the website to see if it was worth considering on-line shopping. Under normal circumstances, I’m getting my spices from chain supermarkets, so I didn’t feel like I was betraying any local vendors.
The website isn’t exactly the most sophisticated e-commerce platform you’ve ever seen, but for me this is part of its appeal. It’s functional enough to get you what you need without coming off as a slick sales job at the same time.
Perhaps best of all, tucked at the bottom of the page is a button that says “Stories.” This pulls you into a world of sweet little vignettes about how cooking helps to bring people and communities together in a special way. Bill Penzey’s holiday message from 2017 is featured prominently on this page and he wraps up his message with the following:
"The understanding that to best do our jobs we must embrace humanity as well as quality has set all sorts of good things in motion for us, including ever better spices. Now when we travel out into the world, it’s that very same spirit of compassion that cooks share around the table that we carry out into the world with us. This spirit of compassion has opened doors that we never even noticed before, and that have in turn helped us to bring back the very best in flavor the world has to offer. We can report firsthand that the very same spirit that works around our kitchen tables works around the world as well. Kindness Works. It’s a gift well worth sharing.
Food connects us all to bigger issues—whether it’s because people who have food are using it to create community, or people who do not have food are looking to the world around them for help. When we try to pull our food out of this sense of community into some sterile network of mass production, distribution, and consumerism, we deny something about food that is as fundamental as nutrition, and we do so at our peril. In their own way, Penzey’s understands this and they’ve made a loyal customer out of me.
Enjoy!
