SPICEography 
Mexican cooking draws its influences from Native Mesoamerican and Spanish culinary traditions. It is a truly colonial cuisine that emerged from the Spaniards’ conquest of the Aztecs. It was the Spaniards who introduced chicken into the Native Mesoamerican diet. Before their arrival, the Aztecs ate mostly grain and vegetables with …
Charcoal seasoning is a simple spice blend consisting of activated charcoal, MSG, and a handful of basic seasonings like onion powder and garlic powder. Charcoal seasoning blends often contain salt as well. The activated charcoal in charcoal seasoning typically lists bone char, olive pits and coconut shells among its ingredients. …
Bilberry (Vaccinium myrtillus) is a berry native to the Americas and parts of both Europe and Asia. Bilberry belongs to the same family as blueberries. Other members of the Vaccinium family include cranberries and huckleberries. Bilberry’s use goes back to Ancient Rome. The fruit was mentioned by both Pliny and …
Maca is a Peruvian root vegetable with a unique set of characteristics including the fact that it boosts your energy. The tuber is difficult to find outside of South America’s Andes region. The dried and powdered version is far more common but if you have run out of it or …
Elderberry and pokeberry have both been used for much of human history. They are valuable because of their health benefits and other properties. The two are sometimes mistaken for each other, but — as we will see — they are very different. Below, we will examine elderberries and pokeberries and …
Maca — also called maca root or Peruvian ginseng — comes from the South American countries of Peru and Bolivia. Both of those countries are quite mountainous and maca grows best at high altitudes. Maca is a root vegetable in the potato family that is said to be the highest …
Pokeweed is also known as poke sallet (sometimes spelled salet) or poke salad. A few native American tribes used it as food but most considered it medicine. It has continued to be a traditional food in parts of the Appalachian region but is not widely known outside of that part …
Ground cloves and whole cloves obviously have a lot in common. Whole cloves are the dried buds of the Syzygium aromaticum plant before they are powdered. They have the same flavor profile, but the act of grinding the buds to powder does dramatically alter the properties of the spice. Below, …