I think I need more space in my spice cabinet. Another row for jars on the doors might help, but bags of whole spices take up a crazy amount of room
@olavf What I find surprising is how many of the different smaller spice jars have a mouth too small to accept a measuring teaspoon (5 ml). Who thought that was a good idea? So I find myself buying larger jars just for the larger mouth.
Some items like chili powder, cumin, and oregano I use in enough quantity to get the large jars that will fit a tablespoon measure (15 ml).
@shuttersparks these work well and easily accommodate a tsp and probably 1/2 tbsp. And fit the racks rather perfectly. Volume is roughly the same as grocery store jars.
The 5+1 big jars are chili powder, Libyan Bzaar, Lybian Hararat, Ethiopian berbere, turmeric and (not shown) cumin, which I use/buy/and or make and use in bulk.
I do my own cumin and Bzaar, and am working on a low heat berbere. I'll send some of the first two your way if you like.
@shuttersparks
I'm confident enough.in those to consider an etsy
@olavf Hmm, fascinating. You mention three spices I am not familiar with. I'll be doing some reading.
I make my own hummus, which is very popular with my foodie friends, and have done some reading about it. Since humans have been making it for 7,000(?) years it's of interest to me. The oldest recipe for it dates from around 800CE and calls for a "spice" that I can't remember. But it turns out this spice is not a single spice but a spice mixture, and each spice maker/vendor had his own recipe for making it. We have an idea what was in it but we'll never know exactly. :-(
@shuttersparks
They're somewhat fundamental spices; in some cases they're most or all of the seasoning used in a dish. Your Ethiopian wots for example.
Could what you're looking for be something like baharat/7 spice? A quick look has it used by some people in their hummus.
@olavf I don't know. I'll have to re-do some digging and see if I can find that article that named the spice mix. The problem is that every vendor of spices 1200 years ago had their own blend so there's no way today to replicate it exactly.
However, they did list the ingredients commonly found in that mix. I seem to remember something called "long pepper" as one of the ingredients. Long pepper is apparently not used or rarely used today. But it was quite a list, maybe 10 to 15 different spices, that went into this mix.
What I do for new things is copypasta the ingredient lists from not wypo websites into a text file, print, and start comparing. Almost always there's a pattern and I aim for something in the middle, except the rare occasions I have to work around something you can't actually buy. And lately more things Google translated from Urdu or whatever where "long pepper" is probably an indigenous chili and "a spoon of color" is either turmeric or paprika
@olavf Long pepper isn't a chili. Chili peppers didn't exist in Europe or Asia until they were brought out of the Americas and spread around the world, mainly by the Portuguese 400 years ago. So 1,200 years ago, no chilis.
Long pepper's heat comes from piperin, just like black pepper.
@olavf Oh, and thanks for the link. I'll get to investigating on Sunday. I'm heading to bed ahead of two back-to-back 12-hour shifts of cooking on Friday and Saturday.
@shuttersparks
Also these are the racks I use. They work great with these jars, as well as the standard Basset round and generic square grocery store jars
@olavf Funny you should mention racks. I have two large racks, both full, with more just on the counter. Plus I have a lazy susan turntable full of spices and extracts.
I remember as a teen seeing large collections of spices and thinking it was silly. How many spices can you possibly need? My mother didn't use that many and her food was fine. And here I am. Hahaha.
One spice my mother used was cardamom, which I still haven't mastered the use of. She made a delicious dip that included cardamom.
So many foods and flavors, so little time.
@shuttersparks
Heh, yeah mom's recipes are what we eiphimistically call "comfort food" today.
Cardamom is fun. I'm 99% sure what you buy at the grocer is black cardamom (which has an earthy flavor profile) vs green cardamom (sweeter)
which is easier to buy whole as it's what's used in Indian cooking. I have both lol. But black pods are hard to come by unless you're willing to spend $$$ on decorticated (hulled) seeds
@olavf Yes, cardamom is a confusing spice to learn to use because it's used both in sweet and savory dishes with different effects.
@shuttersparks
Could be. I'm not entirely sure what I have at this point. The right-hand side of the middle shelf is 2oz jars of stuff I rarely use. The left side and some of the shelf above (and some of the lower shelf) are whole spices in some quantity or other.