Tag Archives: Spices

Pickling Spice

Homemade pickling spice mixture.This is my homemade pickling spice.  To be wholly honest I don’t use it very often.  I make a lot of pickles, but I prefer my pickled vegetables to taste of vinegar and garlic and maybe one other flavour like dillseed or caraway.  The only preparation for which I regularly use this mixture is corned beef, which I make once a year, for St. Patrick’s Day or sometimes Easter.

That being said I do really love the flavour and aroma of this blend.  To me there is something festive but medieval about it.  It conflates the so-called sweet spices (allspice, clove, cinnamon) and savoury spices (pepper, mustard, coriander, bay).  That distinction between “sweet” and “savoury” flavours is more or … Continue reading.

Mulled Wine

And she feeds you tea and oranges
That come all the way from China

-Leonard Cohen, Suzanne

 

Orange peel, clove, cinnamon, and star aniseI remember my dad telling me that when he was little he mostly got Christmas oranges (mandarins) and nuts in his stocking. When I was younger I thought that was unspeakably lame. I now realize that oranges would have been a novelty at any time of year, but to have such a sweet fruit in the dead of winter was truly a luxury.

I’ve been trying to cultivate a deeper respect for food we bring from afar. Given the season, I’ve been rekindling the ancient occidental obsession with oriental spices. To that end, I’d like to share a story from Herodotus:

What Continue reading.