Spices on a Rack or Lazy Susan
Published by Duncan in the blog Duncan's Blog. Views: 210
My culture doesn't use a large variety of herbs and spices in the preparation of food. In my younger hippie days, I did keep an indoor herb garden in the kitchen. It wasn't always easy to keep assortment fresh or well stocked, but I did at least try. The main choices were basil, parsley, oregano, and dill.
I had always insisted that the herbs needed to be alphabetized on a three-tiered spice rack in the kitchen. That never happened. Instead, they are haphazardly placed on the bottom shelf of a kitchen cupboard. Pretty much all of them are from the same source--Penzeys-- which I gleefully advertise here.
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I was raised with the notion that the flavor of food should come from the food itself. (This is usually the thinking of people who over-salt everything they consume and have all but lost the taste for any herb or spice unless it is a tongue burner). I seldom use Tabasco or chili powder, have never bought curry, and am not a big fan of cumin. The latter most smells like armpit, to my way of thinking.
But, then again, the food that I eat and that makes its way into my kitchen is probably more different than the food of my childhood. The only thing I fry are eggs (and even they are sometimes poached or soft cooked). I pan fry salmon croquettes in a minimal amount of oil. And deep frying is never done in my kitchen. That is reserved for take-away or inexpensive restaurant cuisine (eating foods that you cannot/do not/will not make at home).
So what's on the spice list? There are cinnamon choices (odd since they are almost exclusively reserved for French toast), paprika (sweet or smoked), chervil, bay leaves, caraway seeds, thyme, basil, savory, tarragon, oregano, and dill. Salt is pretty much used for salting cooking water (as in pasta). There is black pepper somewhere, but I use paprika and opt to leave out the black pepper. Some combination spices that have been made by the spice-master have made their way on the shelf; one that comes to mind is called Justice. The owner of Penzeys is very anti-republican and believes that Justice needs to be used generously for consumables.
And then there is Old Bay. That connects me with Baltimore and my friends from Maryland.
There are also some stand-by liquids such as extracts (vanilla, butterscotch, anise), Lizano salsa (from Costa Rica), liquid amino acids.
I don't count oil or vinegar in the spice or condiment collection. Vinegar is generally the base of my salad dressing and I also use it when I soak dried beans overnight.
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