Spices

Spices are dried seeds, bark, roots, buds, berries and flower parts used in small amounts for aroma, heat and color. Pepper, cinnamon, cumin and paprika are everyday examples, and saffron comes from the stigmas of a crocus flower.

How to choose Spices

  • Whole or ground. Peppercorns, seeds and sticks keep their flavor for 3 to 4 years, while a ground jar keeps 2 to 4, so buy ground spices in amounts you will finish.
  • Ceylon or cassia. A Ceylon cinnamon stick looks like a cut cigar, with many thin layers rolled together. Cassia rolls once, with a thicker bark. Ground, the two are hard to tell apart.
  • Blends. A spice blend locks in one cook's proportions, and like dried herbs it tends to fade sooner than single whole spices.

About Spices

Spices are aromatic plant parts used whole, broken or ground, chiefly to season rather than to feed. Some places dominate a single spice: Sri Lanka produces more true, or Ceylon, cinnamon than any other country.

Some carry the name of one place. Pimentón de la Vera is Spain's protected smoked paprika from the north of Cáceres. Its peppers dry for 10 to 15 days over smoke from oak and holm oak, turned often, then are ground.

Keep spices in tightly covered jars in a drawer or cabinet away from light and heat. A jar that still smells strong and shows good color is fine to use.

At a glance

Made from
Bark, roots, buds, berries, seeds and stigmas
Label terms
Ceylon, cassia, pimentón de la Vera, spice and coloring
Unopened
Whole 3 to 4 years; ground 2 to 4

Spices questions

What is the difference between black and white pepper?

Both come from the same climbing vine, Piper nigrum, native to India's Malabar Coast. For black pepper, the fruits are picked as they begin to redden, briefly boiled and sun-dried until dark and wrinkled. For white pepper, the dark outer layer is soaked or softened off first, which leaves a paler spice with less pungency.

Why is saffron so expensive?

Because every thread is picked by hand. Saffron is the dried stigma of a fall-blooming crocus, each flower holds just three, and growers pick the flowers and pull out the stigmas by hand before drying them. It takes roughly 150 to 170 flowers to make a single gram, or more than 4,000 for an ounce.

Is pimentón the same as paprika?

Pimentón is the Spanish word for paprika, a powder of dried, ground red peppers. Only peppers grown and smoke-dried in the La Vera area of western Spain may carry the protected name pimentón de la Vera, and that smoke gives a flavor plain paprika lacks. It comes sweet, bittersweet with mild heat, or hot with pronounced heat, so check which one a recipe calls for.

Sources: University of Vermont Extension; Sri Lanka Export Development Board; Pimentón de la Vera PDO specification (UK government register).

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