Herbs & Spices

Flavors of the World for $200 –

Herbs and spices bring life and flavor to our food, they make our tastebuds tingle with excitement and elicit physical responses from the body.  They have been the sought for centuries and ultimately have been responsible for the discovery of new continents and worldwide colonization.  But what are they…what determines if something is a classified as an herb or as a spice?

“Herbs are fresh and spices are dry?” BUZZZZZZ.  Sorry…WRONG!

“Herbs are used for cooking and spices for baking?”  BUZZZZZZ.  Wrong again!

You probably have a jar of dried basil in your cupboard and may also have it growing in your garden.  In both cases it is considered an herb.  You might also have a jar of ground ginger in the pantry but may have also purchased a nice “hand” of ginger for a recent Asian recipe.  Yep…they’re both classified as a spice.

Whether something is classified as an herb or a spice depends on what part of the plant that it comes from.  Think of herbs and whether they are in dried form or fresh they are typically green in color.  Herbs are the edible leafy green portion of a plant.  (Keyword: “Edible” – don’t use me as an alibi if you try slipping oleander leaves into the meal of someone you’re less than fond of!)  Spices on the other hand typically range in color from bright yellow, to dusty orange and rusty red in color.  Spices are the dried root, bark, or seedpod of a plant.

Now that you know the technical difference, I should point out that modern processing technology is now starting to blur the lines and differentiation.  Dehydration, freeze-drying and other processing methods now allow us to utilize other parts of fruits and vegetables such as tomato powder, spinach powder, etc.  Dried items that are used for seasoning of food but aren’t technically the dried root, bark, or seedpod of the plant are now also classified as “spices”.