[Sca-cooks] Re: spice labels

[Pixel, Goddess and Queen]

Some are labelled and some are not. The more obvious things aren't, like
star anise, and sesame seeds, and long pepper. But I started labelling my
spices back when we were broke and I stored everything in yogurt
containers. Somebody cooking with me mixed up the paprika and the cayenne
in the painful direction, and ever since then I've tried to label the ones
that aren't intuitively obvious.

Basically, if you have to smell it to figure out what it is, I label it.
My sweetie, who frequently cooks with me in my kitchen, has no sense of
smell, so if there's no label I end up pulling the spices out of the
cabinet for him. And that's a pain, especially when I'm in the middle of
working with something like raw meat. Not that there aren't some he has to
ask me about anyway, like the various cassias, but at least I don't have
to wash my hands just to go point to a jar.


Margaret


On Thu, 12 Sep 2002, Louise Smithson wrote:

> You actually label your spice jars.  I tend to use the
> stealth method.  Whatever was originally on the jar is
> the label that stays there.  So I have cumin labelled
> as Tellichery peppercorns, cubebs in an old saffron
> jar and 90% of the rest of the spices completely
> unlabelled.  I know what everything is and it only
> becomes an issue when anyone else tries to cook in my
> kitchen.  It works for me as most of the spices are
> distinctive enough in appearance and/or smell for me
> to tell the difference.
>
> Helewyse
>
> the quote starts here: That reminds me, I need to do
> new labels for my spice jars--the old ones were done
> with ink that turned out not to be waterproof. Anybody
> else use the medieval spellings to label their spices?
>
> Margaret
>