Scraps and Snippets ~ What I Learned In Raw Food Class

Spices and herbs fall into different categories between the sweet and bitter spectrum of tastebud land. Our dishes need a proper blend of sour, salt, sweet and bitter to taste good. The perfect bullseye of taste falls within the mix and blends.

I knew the tastebud pleasure flood goal. But I had an imperfect education in proper spice/herb leanings. Spearmint is sweet but peppermint can go sweet or bitter. Fresh basil is sweet but the dried version will add bitter notes. Cinnamon leans sweet or bitter which explains why cinnamon is called for in so many savory recipes as well as the classic cinnamon roll. : ) Acid can also decrease the need for salt. If a dish tastes flatish, instead of another few shakes of salt an acid might work better.

I also learned that heating herbs too much kills the flavor, and that spices need the heat to bring out flavor. And that spices are two to three times more flavor packed than herbs. So. I need to avoid spices in dishes that don't get cooked and add herbs to my cooked dishes at the last few minutes. Really? That explains a few fails.

All but three of my spices are seriously outdated. Fresh is three to six months. I literally have three that young. The rest are gray haired and using walkers. So. I will be working on parting with my ancient spice. Oooh. Remember the Spice Girls? Wouldn't it have been fun to have an Ancient Spice in the band? Ha. Ha.

We also tried sprouted and soaked grains in banana date soaked oat groat oatmeal, and sprouted quinoa and wheatberry salads. Pretty tasty stuff. The class had chatting time and our classmates want to meet Mother and give kefir and Kombucha a taste. We'll pack a small jar of Kombucha and a small jar with a baby mother to class next week.

Ooooh. That will be fun. I'll try to remember to snap pictures of first encounters with Mother. Heeheehee.