BS: What are your favourite cooking spices?

Subject: RE: BS: What are your favourite cooking spices?
From: gnu
Date: 02 Jun 11 - 03:48 PM

The lass just emailed me and said if she ships it (over half of the cost of the unit) by US mail "the customs fees are much less". ??? I asked her about the free trade agreement and she said "I think the trade agreement is between companies; not people."

WTF?

Subject: RE: BS: What are your favourite cooking spices?
From: gnu
Date: 02 Jun 11 - 04:23 PM

I just looked at the government website and there may be duty and there WILL be sales tax and who knows what else and how long it will take!! I can't believe there would be duty.

I'll just have to have it smuggled across the border. KENDALLLLL!

Subject: RE: BS: What are your favourite cooking spices?
From: Neil D
Date: 02 Jun 11 - 08:04 PM

Patsy,
   I do use coffee as a seasoning. I'm not talking about dry grounds, but already brewed coffee. I let it cool first because adding boiling hot coffee would start the cooking process early. It doesn't really add bitterness, but more of a musky savoriness. I got the idea from an article I read years ago about the Menches Brothers from nearby
Akron, Ohio who supposedly invented the hamburger(there are competing claims). As the story goes they were selling pork sandwiches at a county fair near Hamburg, NY and the fairground butcher ran out of pork and offered to grind some beef for them. One of the ingredients they used to flavor it with was coffee. Their descendants also claim they invented the ice cream cone at another fair when they ran out of paper bowls and rolled waffles into a cone shape. Personally, I think they just invented stories.

Subject: RE: BS: What are your favourite cooking spices?
From: gnu
Date: 02 Jun 11 - 09:09 PM

Neil... yer onto a new market! Hook up with a coffee company with your recipes.

Subject: RE: BS: What are your favourite cooking spices?
From: Darowyn
Date: 03 Jun 11 - 04:02 AM

There seem to be very few mentions of Fennel, though there are two sorts. One type grows a large bulb which is excellent cooked or raw in a salad, and the other sort you grow for the seeds. Dill looks similar and makes a great sauce for fish. Chives add a mild onion flavour and perfume to a dish, again either raw or cooked. I can't eat onions or garlic because of an intolerance for foods containing sulphur compounds, and chives give the flavour without the pain.The flowers are edible too and look great in a salad- though we leave them for the bees.
I notice that some of you in the US are counting factory made sauces and condiments as spices, so I'll put a word in for Mango Chutney, which works with almost everything, and for Harissa paste, like a very concentrated hot salsa.
The king of spices is Saffron though.
We've never tried growing that, but I do think that the only way to get good herbs is to grow them near the kitchen door! We have Rosemary, Bay, Garden Mint, Chocolate Mint, Leaf Coriander, Parsley
(both flat and curly), Thyme, Chives, Basil and Oregano. We gave up on Sage because it's a bush and it grows too big for the herb bed.
Cheers
Dave