Salt is salt
My grandfather used to say this all the time, and it’s true. Salt brings out the flavor of the food, full stop. There are a great variety of salts, but the reality is they’re all the same mineral. Coloration in salt comes from the minerals near the salt as it forms. There’s nothing inherently better about colored salts, but the marketers selling you that stuff will try to convince you otherwise. I’ve seen pink salt promoted as an “alternative” salt that doesn’t cause blood pressure issues. That’s a lie. My advice is to buy kosher salt or the chunkier white salt if you like the crunchiness. If you really like the mild flavoring of gray salt, that’s fine, just know that it’s sold at a higher cost for what comes down to the same thing as my box of salt I can get for a couple bucks. And one more thing: All salt is sea salt.
Salt grinders are bullshit
I’m not done with salt yet: Don’t put your salt in a grinder. All you’re doing is making your salt smaller than it was before. Unlike pepper, which is actually processed in the grinder, salt does not need to be ground and is not fresher after coming out of a grinder. It’s just smaller. Use a shaker.
Organic spices are a racket
There’s a whole other piece to be written about organic spices, but the short version is that demanding organic spices is never going to be good for the farmers growing them. The U.S. standards for organic products amounts to ridiculously expensive and oftentimes unnecessary practices for small farmers who just don’t have the resources to do it. There are plenty of ways to arrive at ethical treatment of animals and land that are not part of our complicated organic laws. And that’s not to mention the people who demand organic products but will also freak out at the sight of a bug or won’t buy something that’s even a little bit misshapen or with a tiny brown spot on it. You can have pesticides or you can have pests.
Spices are a product of their country, culture, and weather
Discerning customers have complained to me in the past that the new cinnamon wasn’t as brown as the old cinnamon. They weren’t wrong, but we weren’t trying to pull one over on them either. Spices are a crop, and like any other plant grown on farms, they’re going to naturally vary from year to year. This happens most obviously with cinnamons, but it goes for all spices and herbs. Vanilla is expensive right now, due to geopolitics, weather, and the mafia. Yes, the mafia contributes to why you’re paying more for vanilla now than you were a few years ago.
MSG is fine for you
The story of MSG is a true tragedy. The negativity associated with this delicious amino acid is due to a spurious study from 1968 that linked MSG with the “Chinese Restaurant Syndrome.” This study connected that gut-bomb feeling you sometimes get after eating Chinese food to MSG, despite the fact that the typically cheap Chinese food prepared in American restaurants is fatty and served in large portions, and (like any restaurant), the food can be spoiled. My mom theorizes that lots of MSG was used to cover up the fact that, say, shrimp was a day past its prime, and that the sick feeling was due to the food but got blamed on the MSG. There’s never been a scientifically rigorous study that’s linked MSG with any negative effects. MSG should be used frequently and added to anything that needs the flavor drawn out, especially soups. But it enhances virtually anything it touches: Once, eating pizza at home, a friend scanned my spice rack and saw a jar with white powder whose label, in my grandfather’s messy scrawl, read what looked like “MS6.” He sprinkled it on his pizza and came to find me, telling me that whatever MS6 was, it was the most amazing thing he’d ever tasted. Yes, MSG makes even pizza better.
Spices don’t go bad
People ask when spices go bad, and the answer is they don’t. Their flavors just fade over the years, faster when exposed to sun and heat. You’ll see it. If your oregano isn’t looking as vibrantly green as it was a year ago, well, the flavor is going to be lessened, but you can compensate by simply using more of it. Whole spices, like nutmegs, cloves, peppercorns, etc., will last a really long time—many years—without going bad if they haven’t been broken open yet.
Vanilla isn’t vanilla
One last, minor thing: Vanilla is a deeply rich flavor that has unfairly become shorthand for boring, basic, and sexually unadventurous. Merriam-Webster’s second definition includes the sad phrase “lacking distinction” to explain the term “vanilla.” I’m not arguing that we drop this secondary use of the word—we’re too far gone for that—but I do want to remind people that vanilla is actually an extraordinarily complex flavor. Chocolate is far more vanilla than vanilla.
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