This one looks good.
When people talk spices, they often mention Peavey’s, and I am unfamiliar with one in Canada. I was unaware there was a Whole Foods in Toronna; visiting it a few times in the US I did not love it despite many novel products on offer. I miss the great markets of Montreal - there was one I went to twice a week - but also like many of the ones in cities like TO, Halifax and Vancouver. I did not mean Canada lacked fancy food halls, and I wish Nichol still wrote The Insider Report.
Still, you are often better off buying spices at a specialist ethnic or multinational store for quality and value. I like Farm Boy, but I only have bought a few spices there - it is good for other reasons.
I wish he was still running Loblaws, and still traveling the world sampling great national cuisines and coming back with new President’s Choice product ideas! 
Not to digress, but if you’re anywhere in the Greater Toronto area and haven’t visited Pusateri’s you really should. They have at least four locations now and several smaller spin-off branches. The original and flagship store is the one on Avenue Road just north of Lawrence. It was expanded and beautifully remodeled several years ago after a major fire. The fruit and vegetable section is amazing in quality and freshness; the fish shop has the widest variety of stuff and their house smoked salmon is the best I’ve ever had; the butcher shop is incredible in its quality and variety; the deli is stocked with superb items that are either far better quality than you’d find elsewhere or are just unavailable anywhere else, and opposite the deli counter is an equally amazing assortment of store-made prepared foods.
It’s a delightful place but it’s far too easy to end up with a huge bill!
I spent a couple summers working as a student in TO decades ago. Know where the original Pusateri’s is. I did not know it was genuinely world class, a term greatly overused in that city. Its reputation for high prices was not helped by Ford lambasting it for thirty dollar Lysol when Covid began. Maybe I will check it out sometime.
Yes, that was unfortunate, and IMHO not typical of Pusateri’s.
Their “high prices” really have to be seen in context. It’s not a good place to buy commodity items like paper towels or a can of beans, because you’re paying more than you would at a normal grocery. But where quality matters, in fresh food items or prepared foods, you’re paying for quality and often getting what is actually a good deal in the process. My late mother used to like shopping there despite being naturally frugal and on a limited fixed income, because she also understood the concept of “value”.
If you find some recipes that look interesting but look a bit too spicy, just sub out (or replace a portion of) the powdered chilis with sweet paprika. I do it all the time for recipes for the family where I have to keep the heat down, but still want some red pepper flavor in there. Paprika is a type of chili pepper, after all, though some varieties are bred and processed in a way to get rid of all or almost all their heat.
Sure. Italian food in particular benefits from high quality ingredients, even if quantities used are small. Sushi grade seafood can be hard to find; not many places even sell fatty tuna. I get it, and good food is worth paying higher prices on some items. But the difference needs to be obvious on the plate. I cook a lot, use many spices, and think spices are best bought at smaller stores than bigger ones for the reasons I said. Quality, not just value, but that too.
Korean chili powder is flavourful and not very spicy. But I like grinding Mexican ones - spicy and smoky is a hard combo to beat.
FWIW, I use Silk Road Spice Merchants for their paprikas, peppercorns and cinnamon varieties among other things. Our ghoulash was never better, particularly after I doubled the amount my MIL recipe called for…
That looks like a great source, thanks for posting!
You’re very welcome. I use a lot of their blends as well. The Poudre Douce, chili rub and za’atar are all really good. Also, alder smoked sea salt , that stuff goes on everything!
I agree about the half sharp and sweet, but smoked paprika to me is about like licking a telephone pole, I just plain do not like smoked anything flavor.
I am also fond of the different versions of cinnamon they have at Penzey’s.
Sumac is an utterly delicious seasoning unfamiliar to most Americans. I discovered it while living in Egypt; it’s a fairly common Middle Eastern spice. Penzey’s has it. Throw some in to any veggie dish while you are cooking it - the taste is often compared to the tang of lemon, but it isn’t so sour.
I will say offer one word of caution, though. Just the other day I decided to dress some cold string beans. I’d blanched and frozen them, but my “blanching” was a little too extreme and they ended up pretty fully cooked, so I decided I’d eat them cold as a string bean salad.
I decided that sumac, some white pepper, and little tahini would make a great dressing.
Sumac’s tasty, so I added A LOT of sumac.
Huge mistake. Uncooked, it was like adding little bits of gravel. Blech.
I’ll continue to use it, but from now on I’ll only add it to food that is going to simmer/saute for a while.
Interesting. I typically use sumac on hummus, to finish, so no cooking, and in that application it seems fine.
You probably didn’t overdo it the way I did. A sprinkle would probably be fine. A really aggressive coating … um, no, did not like.
Also, the hummus would probably “lubricate” the sumac. The beans, not so much.
Fans of paprika should try harissa spice. I’ve had harissa paste before and loved it. But harissa spice has a flavor profile of its own. It has a smokier flavor than paprika does which I like.
I made some compound butter with it the other day to put on my steak. It was absolutely divine.
Any thoughts on preserved lemons? Harissa?
I have a tube of harissa in the door of the fridge next to the tomato paste. That way even if I grab the wrong tube, the results will be…interesting, if not expected.
I suspect that getting fresh spices will be something of a revelation to anyone who’s bought grocery store spices and then not used them often. Just about anything at Penzeys will be fresher and likely higher quality than what you get at the supermarket, and for some things (peppercorns and cocoa powder come to mind) dramatically better.
Every 2-3 years I discover a new spice and cook with it till I get sick of it…
- Paprika, best slow cooked with onions and oil. Good in fatty chicken stews or slow stovetop. It needs fat to shine.
- Gumbo filé, same, as paprika, but best in a soup with fat to catch the flavor.
- Both above, if you over-boil the liquid, all the flavor vanishes
Epazote adds a very unique funky medicinal flavor. IMO it’s great with beans and many other dishes like quesadillas etc.