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Spices
Appears in
Published 1991
My passion for spices began at an age when most children scorn them. This was when my family went to live in Syria, and memories of the exciting smells and sights of the Street of Spices in the Damascus souk, or market, are still with me. In fact, spicy food does not mean food which burns the tongue; it means a complex variety of aromatics which can bring out unknown aspects of ingredients – only a few spices such as chillies, peppers and ginger actually add heat.
In Damascus, I learnt to love the typically Middle Eastern mixtures of cumin, coriander, cinnamon and so on; years later when I began travelling in India, I came across the same spices and many more, but combined and used in quite different ways. This was what led me to begin using spices in my own recipes, sometimes a mixture and sometimes just one spice sparingly added to a mild dish, which can often be extremely effective. A single spice can also be a miraculous last-minute seasoning to so many things, both savoury and sweet; for example, grating nutmeg on to vegetables, milk puddings and cheese dishes, or adding caraway seeds to sweet potatoes and pumpkin.