ABOUT US
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Spice Road Designers are cooks and chefs and Grandma’s and eaters. . . with various backgrounds . . . who genuinely believe that variety is the spice of life! Cultures and homes have; and should be, rooted at the family table. We know that ‘better food makes better people!’
PHILOSOPHY
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Cooking is ‘being human’. No other animal on the planet collects, combines, creates, and chemically alters their nourishment. Cooking is far more than simply adding fire, as some anthropologists suggest. Even before the advent of primitive barbecuing, raw foods were combined to enhance flavor and entice others to actually consume less desirable foods. Hence, ‘Herbs and Spice.’
We Spice Road Designers are cooks and chefs and Grandma’s and eaters. . . with various backgrounds . . . who genuinely believe that variety is the spice of life! That cultures and homes have; and should be, rooted at the family table. Just like all of animal life, most of our day is spent procuring and consuming food. Life doesn’t continue without ingesting calories. Civilized humans may think McDonalds and Denny’s handle that job, but the truth is, we work as engineers and fashion designers to get something to eat.
We have found that many spice blends are a concoction that resulted in a happy accident. And SALT is the primary ingredient in a vast majority. We have nothing against salt, but we don’t believe you should pay outrageous prices for something that is 50 cents a pound. We will discuss this more later.
We also understand a good balance of herbs and spices cannot be obtained by using ‘a cup of this, a level teaspoon of these three ingredients, and another ½ tablespoon of that.’ One of many reasons we began Spice Road Designers. At times we actually measure by the ‘tenth of one gram’. And we often add those ‘secret somethings’ that Grandma and Aunt Ethel never shared.
And we believe that well designed spice and herb blends must be versatile. The supermarket and internet are full of one-hit wonders. When regional and indigenous flavors are combined precisely and skillfully, they can be used for animal-based and plant-based food, across many methods of cooking and hundreds of combinations.
We use science and trained palettes to break through the myths, (like dry parsley is tasty or eggs are evil) . . . beyond poor and pointless principles, (like “I don’t cook with salt, they can use it at the table”) . . . and just ol’ fashioned bad cooking, (like most of the turkeys at Thanksgiving.)
We will also focus on teaching; free teaching. This website will have classes and courses with a focus on food science and solid food production techniques. We won’t be a repository of recipes, but bite-sized gems of understanding ‘how the chemistry and biology and sociology’ of food can change and enhance your experience of ‘consuming calories and promoting the good life’.
Capitalism is okay, greed is not. Spice Road Designers will never profit from under-handed practices. We know providing you with quality and value is the right thing to do. We know we can earn a living without overloading cheap ingredients, using inferior products, or charging for stupid things like handling and guarantees. We win when you win . . . that is fair trade.
METHODOLOGY
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Spice Road Designs are rooted in the following gastronomic principles:
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Food should be pleasurable. The prevailing notion that ‘food is fuel’ is shallow and destructive. (And downright boring.)
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Recipes are fallible. What we eat is enhanced by knowing solid, science-based, production methods. With science we can answer age-old issues like, “Why when I use Aunt Gertrude’s famous biscuit recipe, all I get are rocks!”
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Flavor balance can’t be achieved using level teaspoons. We measure many spices and herbs to one tenth of one gram.
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Time and money should not be squandered. You do not need to purchase or measure the 20 ingredients required to make international delights. At Spice Road Designs, we blend from over 140 flavors. Imagine the size and cost of our spice cabinet!
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Experiencing other cultures enriches our own. Travel is exciting and educational; just expensive. The personality of kitchens around the world are defined by the ‘pinch of this and a dash of that.’ It is the subtleties that change boredom to exhilaration.
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Better food production makes better times. Time spent with your son on the kitchen counter will bind you. Growing a tomato in the backyard will make you never want one of those pink things at the store. Food shopping with your granddaughter will foster memories she will share with her granddaughters one day. Time spent at a BBQ with aunts, uncles and cousins will be remembered fondly. Couch time with nachos and Gilligan’s Island; completely forgettable.
SOCIOLOGY
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Betty Crocker and Uncle Ben did the world no favors. For millennia, cultures have been held together largely by the foods and flavors of the region. Availability was the keystone for a people to develop a unique and pleasurable cuisine within their circle of habitation. Combinations of staples and additives became shared knowledge and a family’s heritage. Even the place and methods of serving and enjoying those foods became ritual embedded into village and family life. Sitting on the ground and eating with sticks could have been ‘proper etiquette’.
With modern methods, like the advent of using camels, foods and flavors were no longer limited to what you could find in your backyard. The wide availability of exotic herbs and spices was integrated into local cuisines. Culture and lifestyles were changed. Heirloom recipes became complex and exciting. Holidays and vacations were built around specific foods and combinations of foods. Spices and herbs became a major player in the fabric of nationality and identity.
But box mixes and TV trays are dissolving heritage and worse, murdering every benefit of the ‘Family Table’. Not only do we sacrifice the taste and experience we have been working all day for, but we lose the 15 minutes of the day when a family can simply talk and plan and laugh together. We bemoan the degradation of our children because of electronic devices and social media . . . but we are throwing away one of the few opportunities where we can really connect.
Drive-thru business models are fast, but the sacrifice is huge. Our taste buds, our nutritional requirements, our waistlines, and our ‘sit-down-at-last’ times are flushed away.
Okay, off of our soapbox now!
The social science of food should not be ignored. And Spice Road Designers are keenly aware of the need to gather and blend and preserve the ‘cultural and colloquial’ flavor combinations that have made us uniquely human.
WHAT ABOUT SALT?
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Understanding salt and sugar may be more important than you think. These are just a few highlights.
Salt. Salt is a simple compound; typically only 2 or three elements, that stimulate your perception of SALTY. Sodium Chloride is the ‘table salt’ we use, but some companies use other options and usually way too much. People have sensitivities to salt, for health reasons and from habit formations. And you shouldn’t have to pay exorbitant prices for something that you have in abundance.
We add some salt in most of our blends because it is vital to extract flavor by breaking down the cells that make up ‘food’. When a salt is introduced to any liquid, the sodium and chloride atoms come apart and are ‘Ionized’. These positive and negative particles assist in pulling down the barriers (lysis of cell walls and cell membranes) that encapsulates all the good tasting stuff.
The flavor of foods is enhanced greatly by ‘ionizing’ early in the production process. A little now is much better than a lot at the table. If you want to reduce sodium intake, use salt in the kitchen rather than loads at the table. Some like the heavy stimulation of sodium ‘perceived by the taste buds’ and grab the shaker before they even taste the food. Some cooks and chefs are highly offended by this practice. Perhaps it is wiser to understand that some people really really really like that sensation from their tongue.
Also, when using our blends, you may likely find you simply need to add a little salt, not more of the blend. We designed it that way. In the cooking world it is known as rectification. Many recipes say, ‘taste, and add salt if needed.’ And we don’t believe you should have to pay exorbitant prices for something you have in abundance.
Sugar. Sugar is only a little more chemically complex than salt, but is one of several compounds that taste SWEET. These mono and disaccharides stimulate certain taste receptors that really make us happy. (The more complex saccharides, carbohydrates, have become known as ‘comfort food.) The simple sugar, glucose, FUELS THE PLANET. With rare exception, every living cell uses the glucose molecule to provide the energy needed to survive. So how can sugar be evil? Gluttony is the modern-day problem.
But we all love sugar. It can even be addicting. Can you say ‘chocolate and donuts?’ So as Spice Road Designers, we may add a touch of sweetness to some blends you wouldn’t expect. With rare exception; however, not enough to be on the glycemic index recognized by dietitians. When we are about sugar, you will know. You put sugar even in your food vocabulary, and don’t even recognize it. Sweet corn, sweet peas, sweet basil . . . even potatoes.
Spice Road Designers use salt and sugar with wisdom and purpose. We hope you enjoy our creations.