Majicman Notes

Spices are luxuries , ornamental to our lives. They provide little nutritional value and, beyond a few medicinal applications, are entirely unnecessary to survival. What they offer is an escape from tedium — a reason to take joy in food beyond the baseline requirements of existence. Where herbs are often chosen to complement and flatter the ingredients they adorn, spices call attention to themselves, transforming and sometimes even usurping a dish, so it becomes a mere vehicle and excuse for spice itself. Roast spices in a pan before cooking with them, as is done in India, and they seize the air, the fragrance like a liberated genie.

By Ligaya Mishan

The New York Times