Book review: The Modern Spice Rack
These pages outline each spice's flavour profile and origin, as well as providing buying and cooking tips
Variety is the spice of life, so the saying goes. And this book certainly has that, with recipes as varied as the countries the spices originate in.
Created by spice company owner Rachel Walker and chef and recipe writer Esther Clark, The Modern Spice Rack takes an authoritative, deep-dive look into the world of spice. After a short introduction to the basics – including notes on how to grind, toast, bloom, temper and infuse – what follows is a hefty 60-page chapter dedicated to different key spices all the way from allspice to za'atar. These pages outline each spice's flavour profile and origin, as well as providing buying and cooking tips, with favourite recipes highlighted to be searched out later on in the book.
The authors offer a raft of historical information and interesting facts. Did you know that nutmeg is a powerful narcotic used by an incarcerated Malcolm X in the 1940s? Or that the Sumerians used coriander to flavour an early form of beer in the third millennium BCE? Or that there are varieties of the sumac tree, one of which is poisonous?
The remaining chapters of the book are split more traditionally, encouraging readers to add a pinch, sprinkle or a grating of spice to: breakfast and brunch; weeknight supper; weekend feasts; snacks and sides; and something sweet, something baked.
The citrus and herb notes of za'atar are perfect for doorstep wedges of chicken salad sarnies, while a spice blend of turmeric, cinnamon, black pepper – appropriately named ‘golden blend' – is used to infuse a custard tart.
While this book clearly aims to encourage home cooks to clear out their dusty spice racks and give that eight-year-old jar of cinnamon the boot, it also encourages liberal use of spice, with thoughtful uses of lesser-known varieties which could potentially spice up dishes for chefs stuck in a seasoning rut. And before you know it those decade-old store-cupboard spices will be replaced by amchur and shichimi togarashi – just don't forget to plan in that annual stock-check of what will inevitably still get lost in the back of the cupboard.
The Modern Spice Rack by Esther Clark and Rachel Walker (Hardie Grant, £22)
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