There are a lot of different spices out there. You will
want to stock your kitchen with a variety of different
spices. As spices can be expensive, you may not want to run
out and purchase them all at once. Some spices you can buy
in bulk, and at some places you can buy bulk spices.
Conventional wisdom has it that spices begin to lose their
flavor with age. However, I've let some spices sit for a
couple of years, with minimal loss of flavor. Therefore, I
say buy bulk and save some money. The question then becomes
which spices to buy first. Below is a list spices which I
view as immediate necessities. These are listed in
decreasing order of importance. This list of spices is very
limiting, and I urge you to quickly expand your spice
collection (see the Spice Concordance ). (Concordance:
(1) An alphabetical listing of the principal words in a
book with their immediate context; (2) a word meaning
glossary, principally encountered in cookbooks by people
trying to sound important). For a fairly comprehensive offering of different spices, visit Penzeys.com.
Salt:
The original spice. This may horrify some people, but salt is a flavor
enhancer, and while it shouldn't be used lavishly, it shouldn't be
ignored. What perhaps should be ignored, at least for the purposes of
cooking, is what is called table salt. I imagine it is called this
because you pour it on your table (cloth) to soak up a red wine stain.
But if you're looking for some salt to add to your food, you're much
better off using kosher salt, sea salt, or some other style of
adjective laden salt product.
Black Pepper:The second original spice. Throughout
the fifties, salt and black pepper reigned as the king and
queen of the spice cabinet. Pepper comes in many varieties,
black, red, and white being the most common. Black
pepper offers the most flavor, with the least amount of
hotness (piquancy). Fresh ground pepper is far superior
to pre-ground, so buy whole peppercorns and get yourself
a pepper grinder.
Italian Seasonings:
This is a jar containing a
combination of herbs that are associated with Italian
cuisine. Normally the mix is parsley, oregano, basil,
rosemary, and thyme. The beauty of this is that if you want
to flavor something, but are too lazy to put any effort
into it, you can add some Italian seasonings, and it will
give you a not unpleasant result. The downside is that
unless you diversify, you will find that everything you
cook tastes very similar.
Cinnamon:The king of the "breakfast spices"(when
one of you wise-guys can show me a "nutmeg crunch" cereal
I'll revise this). While American cuisine conspires to keep
cinnamon at the breakfast table, other cultures have
welcomed it into a variety dishes. If you neglect to buy
any other spices of this kind, you should at least buy this
one.
Garlic:Fresh garlic, actually a member of the lily
family, is preferred to its processed counterparts. Garlic
is an integral flavor addition to a variety of dishes. In
addition to adding excellent flavor, garlic is good at
keeping boring people away (this would include vampire
fetishists).
Onions:Again, a member of the lily family. You
should always have a couple of onions on hand. The four
main varieties of onions are red, yellow, white, and green.
Red onions are usually milder in flavor, and better for
eating raw, as in salads. Yellow onions are the least
expensive, and, I feel, work best for most cooking
purposes. As for large white onions, no one really seems to
know what they work best for, but they are the most
aesthetically pleasing to to use as kitchen decor. Small
white, or "pearl onions", can make tasty additions to stews
and other dishes. Green onions (or scallions) are very
mild, and are often used to garnish dishes, or are added to
dishes in the final stages of cooking.
Tabasco sauce:From fried potatoes to Bloody Marys,
Tabasco sauce is your friend. It is hot and vinegary,
adding piquancy and flavor to a variety of dishes. Accept
no substitutes. Unless you're like Benj and let your
rhetoric skills override your sense(s), you would never
think to argue that Crystal could come even close to the
master.
Worcestershire sauce:
I'm sorry, I was still thinking
about Bloody Marys. This should be listed somewhere in the
Spice Concordance.
See the Spice Concordance for a list of
spices you may want to buy over a period of time. I
would start at the A's and read down (it's not that
long), but if you're looking for something specific, you
can click on the letters in the crude indexing bar to
jump to a specific section.
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Spices & Herbs 
