"He who controls the Spice, controls the universe!"

Do you know the quote? It's from the 1984 movie adaptation of the novel Dune, the seminal SciFi novel written by the great Frank Herbert and spoken by his creation Baron Harkonnen. The spice he refers to is an illicit geriatric drug the gives the user a longer life span and heightened awareness.

For the purposes of this post, I'd like to paraphrase a bit and say that:

"She who controls the spice(s), controls the food."

Here, spice is neither illicit nor a drug, and I don't know if it will increase my life span but it certainly does provide me with heightened awareness (of the food).

Used correctly, spices elevate food from sustenance to the realm of pleasure and can activate any or all of the 5 elements of taste perception: salty, sour, bitter, sweet and umami.

There seems to be a belief, held by many, that "spicy" food means "hot" food. Although peppery hot food is certainly spicy, not all spicy food is hot. Far from it. There are literally thousands of spices available to the adventurous cook that can be used to enhance the enjoyment of any dish, from the simply hamburger to the most involved haute cuisine.

When I decided to write a post about spices, I asked Cynthia to guess how many individual spices we had in the house. Her response was along the lines of, "I don't know,um, a lot?" Turns out she was right, we have a  lot of spices

The main spice drawer

The rest of the spices