Zestfully Yours

Science fiction has its space zombies, but the home kitchen has its spice zombies. Spice zombies think they love spices and may well have a considerable arsenal in the pantry. They add a half teaspoon of caraway seed or ground mace or anise to whatever they’re cooking and congratulate themselves for not having to make an extra trip to the market. But they’re oblivious to the fact that because the spices were bought when people were quitting good jobs to work for dot-coms, heat, light and time have since rendered the contents of those vials inert.

I should know because I used to be a spice zombie. Then I became friends with a chef who could work himself into a grand mal seizure on the subject of spices. He lectured, he implored, he pleaded and ranted about the absolute importance of using fresh, high-quality spices. “Ze espices! Zey must be fresh! Joo must always get ze best quality possible! Otherwise, zis lobster, zis chicken, zis cow--he die for notheeng!” Did I mention he was French?

That was my wake-up call, and I inspected my spice rack. My main interest in cooking was always to impress women, so I found I could correlate most of my spices to some past girlfriend. As an exercise in personal archeology, it was interesting. But for cooking purposes, my collection was pretty lame.

My chef friend bought his spices at a store called All Spice on Fairfax Avenue. He liked to wander around the shop and sniff the bins, and this inspired many a dish. He said the spices there were the best you could get in these parts, and he marched me there to introduce me to Perry Doty, its proprietor.

As you might expect, Doty is passionate on the subject, even though falling into the spice business was one of life’s unexpected bank shots. While earning a doctorate in political science from Oxford, he traveled far and wide, sampling the local cuisine everywhere he went. “From that, I learned what things were supposed to taste like,” Doty says. And for him, taste is serious business. After all, Doty learned to cook “defensively” because his mother, he says, could even ruin TV dinners in a way that required a certain kind of genius. He also wanted to impress women. Once, for example, he prepared his date a historically correct Medieval dinner using frankincense. While he won’t share the outcome of the date, he will concede that “there’s a reason we don’t cook with frankincense anymore.”

In Europe, he notes, spice shops are a common feature of culinary life. He fell in love with one particular store in Notting Hill; it planted the mustard seed of his inspiration, which came into blossom four years ago when he went hunting for authentic Jamaican allspice (he takes a dim view of the Mexican-grown stuff) and couldn’t find any that suited him. If London, Paris and New York could have spice shops, he reckoned, why not Los Angeles? All Spice opened for business four years ago.

Doty screens his suppliers as if they were going to rent his spare bedroom. Samples go to laboratories for analyses of their volatile oil contents, their constituent oils and other aspects of their composition that affect their flavor profiles. He also does his own grinding, creates his own blends and curry powders and replenishes bins before the contents lose their freshness. Once ground, most spices are short-timers, good for only six to eight months, although black pepper loses its snap after three months, and ground nutmeg goes for only five days.

Depending on how adventuresome you’ve been with food, you will experience All Spice either as a trove of all the ingredients you’ve wanted but could never find, or as a revelation. Fennel pollen, grains of paradise, curry leaves, monk’s pepper. But Doty is quick to shoo cooks away from a fixation on the merely exotic. “It’s all about the quality and freshness,” he says. “Actually, my biggest-selling item is black pepper. When you’re using the best of even ordinary spices, it makes a huge difference.”

I expected to pay a premium for freshness, but found the prices were lower than in the supermarket, where you’re mostly paying for packaging and where the spices are sold by volume rather than weight. At All Spice, Doty measures them out of their glass bins and funnels them into small plastic packets.

That day I walked out with packets of hot Spanish pimenton (smoked paprika), juniper berries, sumac and mustard seed. As I would discover, the difference between stale spices of dubious origin and fresh, highborn ones is fairly stunning. Using high-quality spices, one can actually cook quite simply, creating simple dishes with just one or two ingredients. The addition of a well-chosen spice shifts the flavor into an altogether different dimension. For example, I’d been trying to re-create a pimenton-laced spinach dish I’d had as a tapa in Seville. With recently purchased grocery store paprika, it was agreeable. With the fresh pimenton, it was stunning. Later, I threw some juniper berries into an improvised saurbraten, or German-style marinated beef, and was amazed at how the bitter, floral pungency infused the meat. I found that the pleasantly sour but fruity sumac, used in Persian and Middle Eastern cooking, adds pizazz to basic salads. Soon I’ll get around to making my own mustard. As for my old sentimental spice collection, I guess I’ll follow Doty’s advice and “just put ‘em out of their misery.”

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Fennel Prawns

Serves 4

1/4 cup olive oil

1 teaspoon ginger (or galangal root) powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 tablespoon granulated garlic

2 tablespoons fennel pollen

1 pound raw prawns (shrimp)

Put olive oil (reserve 2 tablespoons), ginger, salt, garlic and fennel pollen into a bowl. Stir thoroughly. Add prawns, stir to ensure that each prawn is well coated. Saute shrimp in reserved olive oil over high heat in a large skillet. Cook until shrimp are pink and opaque, about 5 minutes. Do not overcook. Serve as an appetizer, side dish or on a bed of rice.

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Sumac and Onion Salad

Makes 6 cups

1 cup water

1/2 cup white vinegar

3 large Spanish onions, thinly sliced

Salt to taste

2 tablespoons sumac

In a salad bowl place water, vinegar, onions and salt. Allow mix to stand for at least 2 hours, stirring 3 or 4 times. Drain, then sprinkle sumac and gently toss just before serving. Use as a condiment with grilled meat.

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Spanish Spinach

Serves 6

1 pound frozen chopped spinach or 4 bunches fresh, rinsed and chopped

3 tablespoons olive oil

1 tablespoon Spanish pimenton (smoked paprika)

1/4 teaspoon salt

2/3 cup water

1/2 cup toasted pine nuts

If using frozen spinach, plunge into boiling water until cooked, about 6 minutes. If using fresh spinach, place rinsed but not dried leaves in a large pan and cook, stirring until wilted, about 3-4 minutes. Drain. Heat the oil in a nonstick, nonreactive skillet over medium heat. Add pimenton and cook, stirring about 2 minutes. Add spinach, salt and 2/3 cup water, stirring another minute. Add pine nuts and toss until just heated through. Serve as a side dish or appetizer.

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All Spice, Los Angeles, (323) 782-1893.