Foodbuzz 24,24,24: A Savory World of Spices

     

   Photo courtesy of Savory Spice Shop

I am lost and about to be late. In a flash of genius, I roll down the car window and the aroma of cinnamon and pepper fills the car, guiding me to a nearby parking spot, directly in front of the new headquarters of the Savory Spice Shop. In honor of Foodbuzz's 24,24,24 July event, Mike and Janet Johnston have agreed to give me a behind the scenes look at the grinding and blending that is involved in creating their very special brand of culinary magic.  

Five years ago, Mike and Janet Johnston left their home town of Chicago seeking a new place to open the spice shop they had dreamed of. Denver was their first stop and after falling in love with the climate, the lifestyle and the blossoming food culture, they decided that this would be their new home. And boy, are we lucky.    

Visiting Savory is a sensory experience unlike any other. The aroma of cinnamon rushes up to you from blocks away. A carnival of flavors, scents and textures, Savory is truly a foodie destination of the highest order.

Pushing open the old-fashioned screen door, wood plank floors creak under your feet as you enter the store. The walls are lined with shelves with row after row of bulk spices. At Savory, the spices are ground on-site and mixed by hand. Customers are encouraged to taste everything in the store, comparing flavors and contrasting textures. After making a selections from the bulk jars, spices are scooped and weighed for each curstomer. You can buy as little as ½ ounce or up to a pound of the more than 500 herbs, spices, extracts, seasonings and blends offered.

As a regular visitor to Savory, I can always count on receiving a suggestion that transforms an ordinary recipe into something amazing. The staff’s working knowledge of the culinary applications of the myriad spices and blends is simply amazing.

With herbs, extracts, 140 different spice blends, 8 varieties of cinnamon and 34 kinds of chili powder on hand, they are always ready with a recommendation, technique or something fun, new and usually fantastically tasty to try.

How is this mind-boggling collection of recipes created? In a lab by a team of scientists? In a factory by men in white coats with tiny spoons?

No, most of the recipes have been created in Janet and Mike’s kitchen through trial and error and a lot of cooking. Janet tells me that to create the Tikki Masala blend, they investigated the 43 known ways to combine the spices and then worked to perfect one for the shop. “We ate Chicken Tikki Masala for weeks, until we settled on the right combination of spices”, she said.

In creating the recipes that the shop would offer, the Johnstons spent more than a year mixing, grinding, cooking and tasting. They began with a list of “must-have” spices and blends. “We knew we needed a vindaloo, a garlic pepper, a lemon pepper, a Thai curry,” Janet said, “and then we added some classic recipes – jerk and Cajun seasonings, an Old Bay, and barbeque seasonings.”

"New recipes are inspired by different foods we eat. If we taste something, like Chimmichurri, that would be a good addition, we can recreate in here. It's just taking good flavors and understanding how they work together" says Mike. But translating liquid ingredients and flavors into a dried mix can sometimes be a challenge. "The blends have to taste good dry. It won't taste good in your food if it doesn't taste good in the dried form"

Curries were a bit more difficult. The curries contain the same basic ingredients: ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg, mace, paprika, onion, garlic, turmeric, coriander, cloves, cumin, black peppercorns, fennel, fenugreek, anise seed, cardamom, asafetida, poppy seeds, mustard seeds, shallots, allspice, curry leaves, kaffir lime leaves, galangal, lemon grass, cayenne and other hot peppers, but the difference is in the details. “Every family has its own recipe that they have passed down through the ages. Every one is a little bit different and each family thinks that theirs is best. There are no hard and fast rules.” said Mike. So in response to customer requests for additional flavors and levels of spiciness, the shop now boasts 24 different curry blends.    

During my visit, pepper was the spice of the day. A colorful mix of pink, black, green and white peppercorns were being mixed to create Savory’s signature Four Corners Pepper blend. Across the room, fragrant black peppercorns were churning through an almost deafeningly loud grinder, and a sifter sorted ground pepper into six different tubs according to the size of the grind. Pepper is sold whole, ground and is used in many of the shop's blends. And sales are good. Last year, Savory sold over 5,000 pounds of pepper and expects to double that this year.         

In the storeroom, tubs of ingredients line the walls – chili peppers, nutmeg, star anise, cumin, thyme, parmesan cheese, honey powder, chocolate and salts, and burlap bags of newly arrived spices sit on the floor.

The Johnstons source most of their ingredients whole and grind and mix them as needed in the shop. This allows them to offer the freshest spices possible to their customers. The flavors in spices are volatile oils that start to dissipate as soon as the spices are ground, carrying away the spices signature flavor and aroma. 

This is really the heart of the Johnstons’ business – educating customers about the benefits of freshly ground spices and how using fresh spices can really improve the quality and taste of the food their customers cook and eat.  

To this end, the shop recently invited customers to trade in their old spice containers for a new, freshly ground spice. Then they did a side-by-side flavor comparison between the old spices and the freshly ground. People were astonished at the difference in flavor and aroma.

“It was a lot of fun. People brought in tins with 13 cent price tags that had been in their cupboard for decades” Janet said. “You would never keep a can of corn around for 30 years but people don’t think twice about keeping their spices around that long.” I asked what the actual shelf life of spices really is. “They will last about a year and a half” said Janet, “If you take good care of them. Store them somewhere cool and dark, not over the stove like most people do.”

I asked Mike and Janet about the many salts they stock. Savory has 16 different salts in a rainbow of colors that include pink, black, red, gray, brown and white. The shop sells rock and kosher salt and an array of exotic sea salts and flavored gourmet salts that have been raked, harvested and seasoned by hand.

Inspired by the beautiful salts, I was ready to run home and pitch my trusty box of Mortons, but Janet assured me that table salt still has a place in the cupboard. "It's what I use for baking," she says. Mike adds, "Otherwise you could use grey sea salt. It's really the only salt we carry that I would use to cook with. The others are finishing salts. Sprinkling them on your dish just before you serve them gives your food an extraordinary bit of color, flavor and crunch.”

And some of the salts really are extraordinary. Rich in minerals and trace elements, they last indefinitely. In fact, Himalayan pink sea salt is the oldest food on Earth. Mined by hand from ancient sea beds, the salt is then brought down the mountains on yak-back. It is a beautiful coarse salt with a color that looks like pink quartz.

The Fumee de Sel Chardonnay Oak Barrel is a real treat. With a sandy, almost velvety looking texture, this gourmet treat is raked by hand and cold smoke seasoned with fires built from the oak barrels used to age Chardonnay. It has a deep, rich and luxurious aroma, reminiscent of wine and citrus. It is magnificent sprinkled on roasted vegetables and to finish grilled meats.    

Savory has been my culinary secret for years but the word seems to be leaking out. In fact, even The Food Network has discovered my secret. The Johnsons have appeared with their spices on Paula Deen’s show, Down Home with the Neelys and Road Tasted. (The Savory episode of Down Home with the Neelys premieres August 1!)  

 And if you are lucky, the Savory Spice Shop might be coming to a town near you. The Johnsons have begun looking for franchisees who would like to bring some spicy goodness to their own corner of the world. They are seeking a few good people who have a passion for food and educating others about how to eat well. And while growth is good, staying true to their customers is always their first priority.

“The effort, love and passion we put in has to shine through” Janet told me. And as many happy Coloradoans will attest, not only does their passion shine through, you can smell it all the way down the street.   

You can visit the Savory Spice Shop at four locations in the Denver Metro Area or online. Their website is packed full of their delicious and exotic spices, with origins, history and recipes.