Cooking is all about spices. This I’ve learned. If you’ve
ever watched professional chefs work, you’ll notice they add spices, and
particularly salt, by the handful, not the teaspoonful. I like a lot of spices.
I want to taste my food.
When we turned over our organic leaf, I struggled to find organic versions of the spice mixes I’d become dependent on
for seasoning taco meat, spaghetti sauce, pizza, seafood, and steak. It was
hard to give up McCormick’s Montreal Steak Seasoning (the secret ingredient in
my husband’s famous burgers) and who wants steamed shrimp without Old Bay
seasoning?
Most commercial spice mixes contain MSG, plus all kinds of
preservatives that most people would not even consider food. For instance, Old El Paso taco mix contains
silicon dioxide which is the same thing found in those little packets that say “do not
eat” in your shoe boxes. It also features ethoxquin which is a preservative AND
a pesticide. If you google ethoxquin you’ll find a huge controversy swarming
around its use in dog food. Apparently dog owners don’t want their pets eating
pesticide! Well, I don’t really want my kids eating pesticides either.
Organic versions of popular spice mixes are silly expensive
and not always easy to find. And there’s no need to – you can make your own!
