Adding Spice to Your Life - Great Tips for Storing and Preserving Your Spices

Lots of folks spend good money on their spices, seeking out the highest quality, most pungent and tasty spices, yet not packaging them well on your shelf or keeping them too long can defeat the whole purpose. Here are some helpful hints:

Don't buy more than you think you can reasonably use in the next year or so. Ground spices, especially, should be discarded after one year. It won't hurt you to eat them after a year, but the punch they deliver is substantially diminished after that time. Whole spices, like nutmeg, can be kept up to two years.

Each spice is composed of hundreds of little taste components. Ground spices expose those components to air, so it stands to reason that the exposure will wear down the strength of the spice faster than stocking whole nutmeg in a jar.

The other factor is the actual quality of the spice. Buying the off-the-shelf spices at the supermarket results in significantly diminished shelf life when you bring them home. Spending more up front on your spices, and getting the best quality available, will make sense in the long run. They taste terrific when fresh and tend to last longer since they are starting their "lives" with more ammunition. Therefore, a pricier spice might last a year or longer, while the same spice in a less expensive version might deteriorate after just a couple of months. My rule of thumb is to smell it, then taste a tiny bit. Is it still exciting to the palate? Is it still full of life and zest? If so, hang on to it a bit longer.

Spices also need some babying when it comes to storing them correctly. Exposure to heat, light, air and moisture really wear the little fellow down. Don't store them above the stove. It's actually the worst place possible and probably the most common spot chosen by cooks. Other no-no spots include next to the refrigerator, dishwasher, stove or any heat vent. Try to store them in a drawer or cabinet; if that's not possible, put them in a protected area away from direct lighting. I prefer my spices in glass jars with tight lids, though plastic containers designed for spice storage are fine,too.

A great tip for protecting your spice investment is to keep only what you need in your spice rack. That probably amounts to a month or two's supply. Then, store any back up quantities in the fridge or freezer. The only spice I know of that is damaged by cold is vanilla, but that is one spice that is so yummy that you probably won't be storing it for long anyway. I suggest that you don't store the total quantity of any one spice because what you can't see, you probably won't use. My back-up supply is in labeled bags in the freezer, making it easy to grab the one I need to refill my counter jars.

Spices have been around for centuries, enlivening food and palates around the world. Experiment with new ones, look at the contents of some of your favorite foods, and notice the spices in new recipes. Try new ones. It's like entering the Casbah right in your own home!