Talking Spices

On Saturday I was at the 151st Slaley show. The village fate, in a village in Northumberland. I have my better half to thank for discovering that it was occurring, she spotted signs for the event and while my initial enquiry to see if I could exhibit there were rejected, as all the spaces were gone, after returning from doing another market I had a message asking if I wanted to attend as other people had dropped out. So I went to the village fair at Slaley.

The aspect that I really love about attending shows like these is the real passion for food and cooking. There are many people who are passionate about creating great food, and even the most reluctant cook does use a few herbs and spices. And I love seeing that sparkle you can see in peoples eyes when I make a suggestion of how to enhance the flavour of food by using a particular herb or spice.

One of the aspects that I am pleased to discover, is that many more people seem to want to learn how to use the spices properly. There was a time when if you talked to people about using spices, the folks I was talking to were only interested in adding heat. Thus spicy food was only about the chilli burn to far to many people. Yet having learnt how to use spices from others, I knew that used well, they can enhance the flavours not smother them.

While there are still a few people encountered that want nothing but the chilli burn, the majority are not seeking that macho torture by food, but ways of enhancing the flavours of dishes. Often it is a direct result of travelling to far away places as well as the meeting and mixing of cultures.

There have been three examples of this, that I will deal with in different postings. The first was a woman from Germany who after having had a holiday in Scotland wanted the spices to make a whiskey cake. I will be posting the recipe here soon. Another was a woman from Scotland who had lived in Holland and had wanted to find a particular spice blend that was common there but like hens teeth here. A blend called Shawarma, Shoarma or Shwarma. The different spellings of the name, was half the problem, but I was able to recreate that blend too. I will be posting recipes here soon of how to use this one too.

The next one was a more complex one, as I was being asked to recreate something that was from someone’s memory of a dish that his grandmother cooked. However, he wants it to be very hot, equating spiciness with heat. Therefore, I actually think I may fail to create what he wants, but it has led me to discover the different flavours of a cultures food that I had known little about. So if when my testing of the blend(s) is done, I should have a fragrant Burmese mix too.

I really am excited by all these different flavours that spices can bring.