— Reuben Sigel

Okay. We have a these are a couple of nice questions. And so let me jump on into the first one here and that is differentiating these terms spice and seasoning which we we use a lot, you know, very casually, you know as we grow up around food and cooking. First of all a spice is something specific right, you know something like black pepper or turmeric or cardamom or you know something that provides flavor and Aroma, you know to a food and so that it generally is is or maybe I should see a more specifically is going to point at These types of ingredients. These are going to be secondary sometimes even tertiary flavorings but very valuable, you know, in terms of providing the flavor and Aroma and ultimately the enjoyment to that finished dish clearly some Cuisines some Regional Cuisines around the world feature spices more prominently than others as we look at perhaps Euro American Cuisine. There's not a lot of spices featured a relatively speaking, you know, arguably we might find more herbs. But if we look at say Indian Cuisine, this is perhaps the the classic example because so many of the spices that we are familiar with have their origins in South Asia, you know, whether it's the cardamom or or black pepper or something else. These all originated from that part of the world and so they play a very strong role in Daily cooking in all the meals of the day and all styles of cooking and you know, if you've dabbled in Indian cooking at all, you know, you will understand that it's not just two or three spices that are called for but it might be five or ten or fifteen spices that are routinely called for in a in a given preparation. But, you know, nonetheless spices again provide the flavor and Aroma that are very interesting and enjoyable to these particular dishes now the term seasoning, you know in a and this is a little more nebulous here a little more hard to pin down but generally speaking I would say especially in professional context. We talked about seasoning as pertaining To the use of salt primarily but also acidity because those two tastes are are so important to balancing a Dish and also so noticeable on the palette and so we we tend to connect those to the to the immediate enjoyment of a dish. So if another was if a dish is kind of flat, you know, tasting on the palate than we talk about adding more seasoning and a very commonly what we do is we adjust the salt level. and or the acidity Okay. Now when it comes to, you know other products on the market, I certainly see spice Blends that are labeled as seasonings. And so this is A I would say a consumer term more than a professional term at least in my experience. Okay, and then on the note of salt and Acidity, I'll mention just a couple of thoughts that come to mind. Number one was salt is on one hand, you know salt is salty, but salt is also accompanied by other subtle flavors based upon the place of origin and to use a wine term. You know terroir comes to mind is this idea of the other minerals that the Clays and Ash and other things that might be part of the salt and all of these provide the salt with different flavors. Even though the base taste is salty. Okay. So hence, we've got, you know salt from Hawaii and the salt from Normandy and northern France and and the different parts of the world that have different cached a different value different, you know, a different type of enjoyment and ultimately you can use any of these for your cooking. It's all just dependent upon your personal preference in my opinion. Of course, some of these things become very expensive and so price might filter what you choose to use. Okay regarding acidity note that there are a number of different sources of acidity when it comes to cooking we have vinegar and the many types of vinegars. So the thing to keep in mind is that on one hand acidity provides The taste of sourness or tartness but there are many accompanying flavors depending on the source of that acidity. So for example, if you've got, you know a white what we call white vinegar or distilled vinegar, there's not a lot of accompanying flavor with that. But if you have rice vinegar or raspberry vinegar or red wine vinegar balsamic vinegar All of these present acidity, but also a different accompanying flavor. And so choose your flavor based upon. What food is going into and then also of course note that these vinegars will often have different colors to them? And so some of them will impart at dark color others a pink color. Whereas others are more neutral like champagne wine. It is or champagne vinegar distilled vinegar rice vinegar, for example, so, you know choose your vinegars according to your desired outcome. Now other possible sources of acidity include citrus fruits, Some are more acidic than others others have more sweetness that are notable but lemons and limes come to mind, you know, as do the Yuzu and oranges and so many other members of that Citrus group, depending on where you might live in the world now just a quick tangent here when it comes to citrus fruits right now. We're talking about Citrus as a source of acidity, but then also right there are different accompanying flavors. Now that flavor in a big Way Is Gonna Come From the zest of the fruit whereas the acidity is primarily going to come from the juice of that fruit. So, you know understand that difference give it a test so that you can better understand, you know this concept and then also, you know, Understand that the zest of an orange of a lemon of a lime for example has a lot of value a lot of aromatic value. Remember Aroma equals flavor. This idea of flavor is, you know said to be 75% or 80% based upon smell right our ability to pick up the aroma of a particular substance or the resulting dish that we produce. Okay. And so, you know what I like to do whenever possible is to pull off the zest of the lemon and then juice it so that I can use both components and really capture the full value of that fruit. All right other sources of acidity include tamarind. Tamarind also is accompanied by some fruitiness a little bit of earthiness from from that fruit. And then there are other things more around the world like kokum kokum is a tree fruit from India very common on the west coast and you'll see that you know as as a souring agent, so, you know, go ahead and experiment with these different things and swap one in and out and see how you can change the results and you know, really have more control over your cooking.