Looking after spices for cooking

A spice is a dried seed, fruit, root, bark or flower of a plant or a herb used in small quantities for flavor, color or as a preservative. Whole spices retain their aroma and potency much longer ground spices, so it is advisable to purchase them whole.

Ground powder often give no indication of age or taste until it is too late. If a spice smells faint or musty, discard it immediately and buy a fresh amount otherwise you will end up with a dusty weak taste in your cooking.

Globalization has made these spices easily available, and increasing their popularity. Preliminary preparations, such as grinding, roasting, or flaking of whole spices, are generally carried out before adding the spices to processed foods.

All spices are more aromatic when crushed or ground. To capture their fragrant and full flavor, it is best to crush or grind them as  needed how to use them.

Spices can be grinded by hand with a mortar and pestle, or use an electric spice mill. When making pastes where species and aromatics are blended together use a food processer or an electric blender. When blending spices, it is extremely important that all the spices combine harmoniously.

The blend should give a fullness of palate when tasted. Some spices are extremely pungent and over powering and should be used with caution so as not to upset the delicate balance created with blending. Depending on its form, the same dried spice will deliver different flavor perceptions in the finished product. Ground spices have better dispersibility in food products than fresh whole spices. Some volatile oils are released through grinding, which partially breaks down the cellular matrix of the spice.

Spices are even more important today as around globe there is a clamor for tastier and ‘spicier’ foods. Spices or their extracts are also used in medicine, pharmaceutical, perfumery, cosmetics and several other industries. Their functional properties as antioxidants, preservatives, anti-microbial, antibiotic and medicinal have been well recognized and made use of.
Looking after spices for cooking

The Element of Spices

The Element of Spices
For spices to achieve their full potential n cooking, it is of paramount importance to be aware of the practicalities of their proper management and use.

The first tentative steps into the wonderful seductive world of spice will involve becoming familiar with specifics of taste and smell, and how each spice worlds in the alchemy and art of cooking.

This familiarization is not difficult. It is best approached with a passionate heart and an inquiring mind. Discover the unlimited and exciting world that awaits people plate - learn what spices are and where they come from, how to store them how to deal with them, the specific techniques involved in their preparation and the sort of equipment need to have on hand.

Spices are best described as the dried parts of aromatic plants whose qualities are perceived through our sense of smell and taste.

They have been used throughout history for their flavoring and medicinal properties.

Spices have a profound effect on health, affecting many function processes in the body. Because they act as antioxidants they are essential in the preservation of food.
The Element of Spices

Flavor

Flavor
Taste and smell, described as our two chemical senses, work together in our perception of the flavor of food.

The process is extremely complex and not completely understood. Neither the tongue nor the nose alone is sufficient to experience flavor; we must have the combination of taste and aroma, as the brain registers signals from the taste buds and mouth and from the olfactory sensory cells at the roof of the nasal passage.

In addition, the sense of touch is inextricably involved in our experience, as we react to the “mouth-feel” of food, determined by its texture and c0nsistency.

The temperature of food, as well as the presence of certain chemicals which we describes as “hot” (as in chilies) or “cool” (as in mints) are also factors.

Piquant foods actually cause a degree of pain, in a way that offends some eaters but excites and pleases others. The look of food before we eat is important, as are the sounds we hear – crunchy, squeaky, slurpy, fizzy, and so on – as we chew and swallow.

And finally a feeling of satisfaction, satiety, or even bloatedness, or the discovery that “it tastes like more,” all contribute to the profound experience of savoring our food.

Moreover, these sensations are modified by our mood at the moment, our state of health, our expectations, nostalgia and the taboos and aversions.

Our sense of smell, while perhaps dull in comparison to most other mammals’, is nonetheless extremely subtle, and we can discriminate among thousands of different scents.

In contrast, the gustatory sense - the perceptions communicated by the taste buds – is usually regarded as rather crude, being limited to just four basic tastes: sweet, sour (or acid), bitter and salty.

This theory is by no means universally accepted, however, some physiologists and some culinary cultures suggest that there are one or more additional basic tastes, variously describe as earthy, metallic, stringent, alkaline (soapy), or spicy (pungent).

It is difficult to specify precisely what is meant by these terms, and some of them may overlap. Our problem is identifying the basic tastes may reflect a physiological fact: Although the question of how many basic tastes there are goes back at least to Aristotle, no one has yet demonstrated that such a thing as a basic taste actually exists.
Flavor

Classifications of Herbs

Classifications of Herbs
In studying a range of aromatic materials, such as the herbs, it is desirable to classify them into groups having some character in common. A botanical classification is of interest but the system which gives the most meaningful comparative grouping is one based on sensory attributes related to the prime constituents of the essential oil.

Although the essential oil is important and is responsible for the characteristic odor and flavor of the plant, it does not represent the total flavor complex; nonvolatile constituents may play a significant part in rounding off the profile and contributing taste elements, particularly sharpness and bitterness.

Herbs can be classified as:

• Herbs containing cineole: bay laurel, rosemary, spanish sage.

• Herbs containing thymol/carvacrol: thyme, origanum, wild marjoram, sweet savory, Mexican sage, oregano.

• Herbs containing sweet alcohols: sweet basil, sweet marjoram, tarragon

• Herbs containing thujone: Dalmation sage, Greek sage, English sage.

• Herbs containing menthol: peppermint, corn mint, spearmint, garden mint.

Classifications of Herbs