Clean Out Your Spice Rack

My new spice rack. It's time for a clean-out. My most used herbs and spices are: thyme, marjoram, salt, pepper, cayenne, cinnamon, vanilla, nutmeg, ginger, and cilantro (though generally only fresh cilantro). My least used: cream of tartar, caraway (because I loath caraway seeds), curry, and fenugreek seeds.

Like most people I don't replace my dried herbs and spices all that often. It can be expensive and you never know when you're going to need that asafoetida, right? I'd be willing to bet that most of you have at least five jars you almost never touch in your spice rack that you bought while trying out some new recipe two years ago when you were on that "world" cuisine kick. When was the last time any of you used mace?

Not too long ago my mom came to my house and made a bunch of curried deviled eggs. I love deviled eggs whether they have curry in them or not. It turns out, though, that very old curry will had an interesting grit to egg yolks while adding no appreciable flavor. I don't use curry all that often. So my mom mistakenly used my very old jar of crusty curry and all the flavor had been destroyed by time and it's great age. The lesson here is: don't ruin your food with flavorings that have lost their integrity.

How can you know if a dried herb has gone bad? Most herbs, when dried well, retain a green or silvery green hue. If your dried oregano is brownish or grey then it is probably not good anymore. The best test of all is to smell it. It should smell strongly of itself when you open the jar. If you don't have a strong nose, as I do, then pour some in your hands and rub it between them. If there's any life left in it you will smell it and the smell will make you want to use it in something right away.

With spices it's even simpler- just sniff it. If the smell isn't strong and delicious in the jar, then it's old. Did you just buy it and it doesn't seem aromatic? Then you have probably wasted some good money on old spices. It can happen. If you want to be able to store spices for longer and have them maintain their integrity, store the whole spices and grind them yourself as you need them. You can do this with many spices such as: cloves, nutmeg, cinnamon, ginger, and allspice.

Here's a quick list of how to cull out your spice cabinet:

• anything over three years old is likely lost much of it's integrity

• anything brown that started of green should go

• lack of aromatic scent

• webbing in the jar*

• dead or live weevils

This is part of good household management. To prevent waste in the future I have some suggestions. When trying new recipes that call for herbs or spices not in your usual repertoire, buy very small quantities from the bulk section of your store (preferably in little paper bags because those are recyclable). Buy just enough for the recipe you are trying. If you end up making the recipe again, you can buy a little more. If you find yourself using this new herb or spice frequently, then you can either buy it in a jar, or better yet, fill an empty jar you already have with a bulk purchase of it.

For those of you hoping to grow your own herbs to dry, here's a list of the herbs that maintain their flavor best when dried:

• thyme

• oregano

• marjoram

• dill

• sage

• basil (though I prefer fresh or frozen)
  

• sweet bay laurel

• stevia

• lemon verbena

• mint

(Don't bother with: parsley, cilantro, chives, or tarragon. You can dry rosemary but I see no value in this as it is very much like putting hard sticks into your food. Most people can grow rosemary and use it fresh all year round and using it fresh is much more tender and good than using it dry.)

Holding onto old food items because it would be wasteful to throw them out is a false economy. My FIL** had a box of cereal in his pantry from 1987 just three years ago that had water damage on the box. He's a very frugal man and frugality has much to recommend itself, but one can take it to extremes that not only don't make sense, but can become a danger to your health. Most food loses it's nutritional value before a year is up. All food is best eaten fresh, or eaten within a year if dried or canned. It may last through a nuclear war ten years from now, but that doesn't mean it has any nutritional value to offer besides filling up a hungry belly.

Be wary of the bargains you buy. If you are buying flour on sale and it comes in a ten pound bag and you don't use much flour anyway, you may be wasting more money than you're saving. Flour goes rancid and can get bugs in it if it isn't used within a few months. Most food items that go on sale are on sale because they are already getting old. If it's something you use a lot of frequently then it is probably a good buy.

Now go clean out your spice rack and see what you have left when you've shaken it all up, sniffed, and sorted it!





*If you shake a jar up a little and you see that there seem to be bits of herb or spice hanging on the sides of the jar, the jar has mites in it. Yep, tiny mites. Or worse? Moths. Gross.

**Sorry for outing you FIL! I love you but that cereal had to go!