Everyone knows that the grocery store has a huge section in one of its
aisles that has all kinds of spices. They put little ‘freshness’ seals
around the tops of the bottles so you know they’re fresh, right?
Actually,
there are no guidelines on freshness for spices. Those spices at the
IGA may have been packaged 3 years ago. Does it matter if they’re
fresh? Try some fresh spices, then decide for yourself.
Disclaimer: I
will freely admit I’m a fan of Alton Brown, and I have gotten a lot of
ideas from him. One of his "Good Eats" shows was on spices, and got me
going on this stuff.
I try to figure out how much of a spice I
need for 6 months. I get this wrong a lot, but I’m getting better.
What I really need to do is let my wife figure out a better way to
organize the spices; she’s really great at that sort of thing. I think
people in general use the same basic 5 or 6 spices over and over, kind
of like most families have about 10 things they cook, and they do it
over and over.
Using the same spices is fine, but use the best
ones you can get (within economic reason). If you’re lucky enough to
have a spice store local, you can branch out a lot by going there and
seeing what they ahve that you’ve not used before, but even online
sources can help you try new things. The store I like to use most is
The Spice House. They’re in the Chicago area with retail locations,
but are at www.thespicehouse.com online. They have very fresh spices
and good prices. They have the best paprika I’ve had, too, which,
doing barbecue, I tend to use a lot. However, there are other places
that have things not carried by the Spice House.
What I don’t
like to get are premade rubs. I’m probably really missing out on some
great stuff, but there are a couple of reasons I don’t get them:
- They
usually ahve way too much salt for me. I just don’t use that much
salt, and even when mixing rubs from recipes, I usually cut the salt in
half. - I’m just a snob, and I like to try to make my own instead
of relying on someone else’s. Barbecue (and cooking in general) to me
isn’t just the process of heating up the food right; it’s combining the
ingredients. I’ve gone so far as to make my own ketchup because it’s
an ingredient to a sauce.
My basic supply of spices and herbs includes:
- Tellicherry peppercorns
- Grey salt and kosher salt
- Garlic powder
- Onion powder
- Ancho chile powder
- Homemade chili powder
- Powdered porcini mushrooms
- Very good quality cocoa
- Dried basil
- Dried oregano
- Dried rosemary
- Coffee (freshly ground when needed)
- Turbinado sugar (I prefer this over brown because it’s dry, and less processed)
- and, of course, Paprika
