Herbs and spices - and everything nices!

There was a time when food was eaten pretty much as a necessity, and not essentially as an enjoyment.  Oftimes the meat, fish, pork, poultry or vegetables were somewhat tainted at the best, if not running near rancid, but less than fresh was certainly a given.  Breads, root vegetables and cheeses were the foundational mainstay.  Fresh water?  Only if you lived near a fast moving stream.  Wines, beers and ales, dairy and juices offered the best safe liquid (wines and ales due to boiling of the water in the creation - although they hadn't yet learned about the act of sterilization).  Aside from alcohols, pickling and preserving, the act of cooking/boiling was the first (and usually the only) line of defense to deal with these taste and health issues for most of society.  Salt was treated like money.  SPICING, in any form, you’d think would have been considered a necessity, but unfortunately a high luxury for most.  Just the demand for peppercorns (and followed closely by cinnamon) was enormous once introduced to the European table from the Orient by Marco Polo. 

In their early days, these primary spice imports traveled through many hands from the Orient – sailed around India, caravan packed up through the Persian Gulf area, then shipped across the Mediterranean; and sometimes shipped around Africa and up that continent’s west coast to the western end of the Mediterranean -- making any imported spices so expensive by the time they reached western Europe, they were paid for in herds of cattle or parallel to that expense level.  At one point, one single peppercorn was exchanged with one head of cattle!  Yikes.  Ultimately, more localized agricultural opportunities lightened that huge financial restriction, but they were still a class/social/expense issue.

I’m so grateful that those historical eating restrictions have been dealt with for most of the world, and we have the luxury of eating for pleasure as well as sustenance.

Pepper is historically popular greatly because it has the remarkable ability to mask bad flavors and enhance the good ones in most foods.   The volatile oils open the senses, clear the taste buds of any residual blockages, and allow a more pure, original taste to be enjoyed.  The ‘fire’ also diminishes unpleasant tastes and odors.  What a magical little ‘corn’.

Try it on strawberries, or cheeses, or greens or cherries or . . . 

Other flavor enhancers are to be found in the forms of:

HERBS (leaves, petals, stigmas and stems of flowers,

plants, and shrubs), etc

SPICES (ground dry seeds, buds, bark, roots; and ground

dried fruit and berries of plants, shrubs and trees), etc

EXTRACTS (reduction, steeping or evaporation of

flavors resulting in condensation, derived from essential

serums and oils suspended usually in alcohol – mostly

found presented as vanilla, nut, citrus/fruits, & liquors), etc

PREPARED MARKET SAUCES (Worcestershire

sauce; fermented pepper sauces – like Tabasco, Cholula or

Louisiana Hot Sauce; soy and fermented soy bean sauces

and pastes [miso] and other Asian condiments -- oyster sauce,

bean sauce, Thai chili paste and fish sauce; mustards/horse-

radishes; vinegars and ketchup), etc

     FLAVORED OILS (sesame, sunflower, coconut, peanut,

      grape seed, avocado, pine seed and other seed oils; walnut,

      hazelnut, cashew, peanut and other nut oils; olive; soy; corn;

      palm kernel; and other hot or cold processed and infused oils

      such as annatto/achiote, garlic, truffle, basil, chive, and lemon-

      flavored oils), etc

All work wonderfully to enhance flavor, and also stimulate saliva and digestion, fortify aromas, and encourage appetite. 

I much prefer eating for enjoyment, but as it is also a necessity, might as well make it strong on all fronts.