Not me, because I love the stuff @Miss_belle - besides that no desire to, energy better used elsewhere!
Have NEVER heard of allspice being referred to as pimento, however. Anyone else?
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I keep pickling spice and use it to season a can of beer when I cook shrimp in their shells for shrimp cocktail. I also have found myself using it as a simmering spice on the stovetop to counteract unpleasant cooking odors.
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Great ideas @retrospek! Love it with shrimp. As well, love the aromas when simmering Greek stifado - you can smell it from outside.
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I have. I don’t know if it varies from island to island, but from what I’ve seen, that seems to be a pretty common name in the Caribbean (and/or at least Jamaica, for sure…) Kind of confused me when I first saw it used (a long time ago), because I originally associated that name (only) with the elongated, somewhat pointy “sweet red (capsicum) peppers” used to make canned/jarred “roasted red peppers” , and probably most familiar to Americans “of a certain age” as The Stuff used to stuff pimento-stuffed olives… But I have no idea what country/ies that usage originally came from…
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That would be one of things I honestly couldn’t be bothered to try to reproduce - unless they suddenly stopped making it. (And I doubt I’d be very successful, anyway…)
I transfer it to a small Mason jar to keep it as airtight as possible, and live with “wasting” whatever’s left by the time it starts to smell no-longer-fresh-enough for my taste… (Which I’d call middling. I’m not a snob about extreme freshness, but I have a lower tolerance for “elderly” spices than many of the more casual cooks I know, who often don’t even sniff things of questionable age before just tossing them in the pot…)
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@MikeG, thanks for your answer regarding pimento being used also for allspice. I’ve been gifted spices and condiments from the Caribbean, but never looked or noticed that as a descriptor.
As to keeping spices fresh, if you have extra room in your freezer, that may work for you. But Old Bay is not that expensive either. I hate to waste, but in reality my can should probably be replaced by now.
Oh to quote a popular spice purveyor, if the quote is indeed attributed to him - spices never go bad, they just fade away. Like a R.S. Song…
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I have been told to keep dry spices out of the frig or freezer because moisture chgs the spice. No?
Typically don’t have much problem with that, especially with whole spices; however, with ground, it’s important to keep out as much air as possible. That’s where ziplock bags come in handy. I don’t have a vac sealer, but people swear by that for freezer storage of spices. I also freeze sesame and poppy seeds, as well as sunflower. Anything that has an high oil content and is more prone to oxidation. All nuts too, except those left out for snacking @Rooster.
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I keep spices in glass. I don’t put coffee beans or nutz in the cold either.
No coffee beans in freezer here. Can understand glass only. I do freeze whole wheat and specialty flours as well. That’s because I tend to buy in bulk, more than I can plow through before facing possible oxidation. I’ve had good success, though we can all have different experiences, based on our needs and the way and speed with which we use things.
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Absolutely. I have put flour and dried powders in cold storage but not in the freezer.
I suppose it goes without saying that there are several (different) recipes for it on the Internet.
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Yes. In Jamaica, especially in the context of wood for jerk. I don’t completely understand, but there it is.
" wood from the pimento tree, which is native to the Caribbean and produces another very important jerk chicken ingredient—allspice berries, used in the marinade—or sometimes sweetwood , the Jamaican name for the laurel tree."
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There have also been pimenton liquers or bitters, which turn out to be allspice, not red pepper.
I use some spice mixes - curry powders and pastes, chili powder as a condiment (but not to make my chili), Old Bay, Italian seasoning (because it was the what the store had one day when I was out of oregano), furikakes if you count them, Trader Joe’s Mushroom Umami salt (some name like that, yum.)
My wife got me half a dozen small shakers of Penzey’s spices at their local store, and those are really nice though I don’t know what to put a couple of them on yet; most do well as condiments. I’ve used the pickling spice for pickles.
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"Early Spanish explorers, mistaking it for a type of pepper, called it pimenta , hence its botanical name and such terms as pimento and Jamaica pepper. The first record of its import to Europe is from 1601.’
Lil’ rascals!
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Yes!
The problem with moisture comes up when you open the jars while they’re still cold. (It’s basically a “dew point” issue, since warm air holds more moisture than cold air.) If you let them warm up to room temperature before opening them, it’s not that big a deal. I don’t bother keeping “normal amounts” of things (like we’re discussing) in the fridge or freezer, but if I buy them in large amounts, I sometimes keep the bulk of it in cold storage, and dole out what I need for a couple of months into a smaller jar to keep on a shelf or in a cabinet…
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Its use in British cooking certainly goes back centuries (same with cloves). These days it tends to be much restricted to the traditional rich dishes made around Christmas. About the only time we use cloves is to stud an onion to flavour milk for bread sauce (a saving grace for the Xmas turkey). Allspice would appoear in the traditonal Xmas pudding and the rich fruit cake - that said. these days we buy rather than make our own.
Cloves are a nice addition to ham, either steaks or roasts.
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