Old Spice?...Scatter It Like Grandpa’s Ashes

Did you know that spices expire?  Yes…after months on a shelf, spices will lose their flavor and become not much more than edible dust.  Put it in your meals and you’ll have…well…dusty meals. LOL  McCormick has a great web page called “How Old Are Your Spices?”  It’s worth a quick glance.  I especially liked #4…If it’s a tin, it’s at least 15 years old.  I can’t tell you how many tins I dug out of my Mom and Dad’s pantry the other day.  But my rule of late has been, “If it won’t kill them, I won’t throw it away.”  So those tins are still sitting in the pantry, albeit out of reach.

My advice, go out and buy new bottles of the spices you use on a regular basis.  If you need to, do it over time.  When you use a spice that looks old, leave it on your counter to remind you for your next shopping trip.

The absolute best way to do spices is always in seed/pod/whole form.  It takes a lot longer for these to go flavorless.  So cinnamon sticks are better than ground cinnamon, coriander seeds better than ground coriander, cumin seeds better than ground cumin, whole cloves…  Well you get the idea.

“What do I do with cinnamon sticks when I need ground cinnamon?”, you ask?  Well…you grind them…and the easiest way I‘ve found to do this is to buy a separate coffee grinder just for spices.  Throw the whole form spice in and hit the grinder button and you have the freshest ground cinnamon, cloves, coriander, cumin, etc. you can get.  You’ll need to experiment a bit with volume…like how much stick cinnamon makes a teaspoon?  You will however, be surprised at the strong, aromatic spice that results.


So toss those old spice tins...but check eBay first.  If they're really old, they may be worth something. Ha Ha