The spices of life

[matthewdaly]

I bought a spice rack probably over ten years ago when I started realizing that kitchens can be used for more than boiling water and microwaving burritos. It came along with eighteen bottles of herbs and spices. Of course, I have to bear my share of the blame for buying an eighteen-slot spice rack, but at the end of the day I suspect that I am sadly provincial AND they were needlessly esoteric or perhaps taking unfair advantage of the Marjoram Glut of 1997.

Let us review these bottles. Ones in parentheses are not part of the original set, and sit in separate bottles above the rack.

Well-understood: Chopped onion, garlic salt, onion salt, oregano, parsley, sweet basil, thyme, (cinnamon), (dill weed), (nutmeg)

Opened but probably only used once for a specific long-forgotten recipe: Bay leaves, fennel seed, savory, (cayenne powder)

Never opened: Allspice, celery seed, coriander seed, dill seed, mustard seed, marjoram, peppermint, spearmint

So, in celebration of spring cleaning rituals and the simplification of life, I'm in a vague mood to start acknowledging that my spice rack is not the House of Lords and some of these hereditary peerages might need to be wiped out to make room for exciting twenty-first century e-spices. Not even the things I use a lot are immune; I can chop my own damned onions and I think that I will be replacing the garlic and onion salts with their respective powders.

Any nominees for expulsion and membership would be most welcome.

Comments

[deane]

I find a sprinkling of allspice to be nice on pancakes, french toast and the like. Basically, any place you might use cinnamon will likely also take well to a bit of allspice.

I generally find garlic powder to be pretty awful and not taste much like garlic. If I'm not in the mood to crush my own then the small jars of chopped/crushed garlic in oil are an excellent substitute.

[matthewdaly]

Interesting. I've never made pancakes for myself, as I'm more of an omelet guy, but there's no reason I can't try. I guess I'll need to get a mortar and pestle, as the allspice is not ground but rather in petrified berry form.

I agree that garlic powder isn't much like working with cloves, and I couldn't imagine cooking with it. But it is a nice seasoning for pizzas and fries, and you need it for marinades. To be honest, I don't know how the dehydration process affects its properties as a vampire ward; you'd have to think that it would be more powerful but it's hard to find trustworthy research on the web.

[deane]

I suspect that the absence of published data on the effectiveness of garlic powder against vampires is in itself and indication that it doesn't work very well. Doubtless evolutionary pressure is keeping the body of researchers quite small.