On the tongue.
I keep a well-stocked spice cabinet; I tend to spice on the fly, often without tasting, putting flavors together in my head and trusting in my eye and hand to make things come out correctly. It’s a dangerous enterprise, and not for the faint of heart – and not something to do with unfamiliar spices. Once, my mother-in-law had me spicing a beet salad for her, and stopped what she was doing when she saw me tip the hot Chinese pepper into my hand, press a fingertip into it, and taste it. She seemed surprised and pleased, and I wondered what maniacs she had encountered who would willy-nilly toss spices in without knowing the flavor of them.
I remember tasting that pepper, calculating the flavor of beets and onions, and asking for cumin: the heat from the pepper would not be enough to set off the sweetness of the vegetables, and it would sparkle so much better against the cumin. I remember eating that salad, cool and sweet, with a depth and consequence to it, and a brightness, like sunlight on the ocean. (It was, I think, my first pleasant experience with beets, which I had previously encountered in some dreadful borscht and in my paternal grandmother’s pickled eggs. It seems strange to me, now, that I knew enough of their flavor to spice them appropriately.)
At home, with my intimately-known and well-loved spices, I am not cautious. This has more successes than failures, fortunately for me – though the time I wasn’t paying attention and put ground cumin in the hot cocoa will haunt me forever.
I think that the fact that you “see” the way that spicing is going to work together makes this not such a “by the pants” activity. Your description is priceless.
If you haven’t tried them, there are some amazing spices that you possibly don’t have: like galingale, grains of paradise, and cubeb. They are amazing.
*g* That’s the way my dad taught me to spice as well, and while I’ve had some spectacular failures (Dill and dried mustard in spaghetti sauce, anyone?) it’s given me a pretty good idea of how spices *should* work together….
The cumin cocoa was… interesting. There have been more than enough surprising successes from spice experiments to offset the occasional incident like that, though.
I think my mom’s basically not super-used to having other cooks who cook like she does in her kitchen these days — it’s been a long time since she cooked with her mother, it’s been a long time since I cooked with her regularly as a kid, and surprisingly few of her friends are avid cooks.
Every time Ethan goes to Ghana, he comes home with a kilo or so of hot ground Ghanaian pepper from the market downtown. The first time he went to buy it, the ladies tried to sell him kebab spice instead; apparently even in Ghana men mostly grill, while cooking is considered a women’s thing to do, so they were baffled that he apparently wanted other spices too. The kebab spice was good stuff, but there’s nothing to beat the hot pepper. We fill jars and jars with it, and it goes in damn near everything. When we’re running low, we know it’s time to travel east again… :-)
Rachel – the spice from Ghana sounds wonderful. A lot of spices are still regional things, even as previously-unusual ones become commonplace. Sometime I really must write something about my experience reading Comfort Me With Apples, because it was (among other things) a fascinating look at the birth of American fusion cuisine as I know it.
Ooh. What’s the Ghanaian pepper like? I love interesting new hot peppers.
Odriana – Galangal I’ve used, though I don’t own any. The other two…I sometimes find Grains of Paradise, but rarely, and usually when I haven’t got my wallet on me. Cubeb I’ve never seen on its own, but there’s a local African grocery I’ve been meaning to check for teff anyway, and that’s probably the most likely place for it.
As for seeing flavor combinations – it’s interesting, because I think almost exclusively aurally, but I do see-and-taste flavors. It’s a strange joining, particularly when I’m not eating anything, but end up still being able to almost taste the imaginary combinations in my mouth.
Sharkie – it’s the only way, as far as I’m concerned!
I really miss the wide variety of fress chiles at the NYC farmer’s markets. And the Indian food markets in Queens.
Ah, well. The things you give up for a steady paying job and housing that doesn’t cost a fortune.