Exotic spices rule in pandemic pantries
From amchoor to zhoug: have you spiced up your lockdown larder?
Writing on Twitter recently, @FiftyFootDoll spoke for many of us. “Bored of thinking about what to have. Bored of cooking it. Bored of eating it,” they said. “I am so bored of food.”
When stay-at-home instructions first went out, there was reason to view them as an opportunity. We could all put that extra kitchen time to good use: cooking casseroles, hand-rolling pasta, fermenting kombucha… such possibilities! Life had given us lemons, we would make lemonade.
Reality proved otherwise. By the end of 2020, diners in the UK had consumed a record 150m home-delivery pizzas and 40m curry dishes, orders at Just Eat were up by 43 per cent and Deliveroo had reversed a £320m deficit it faced in 2019.
This year, a different trend has emerged. Perhaps born from the realisation that (A) we’re in it for the long haul and (B) all those Deliveroo drop-offs are beginning to feel like a bad look, supermarket staples are back in vogue, albeit upscale versions thereof. Whole Foods Market calls the trend “basics on fire” and cites demand for applewood-smoked salt, hearts of palm pasta and cayenne-infused honey as evidence.
Waitrose reports strong sales of zhoug, a chilli-enhanced blend of herbs and spices, originally from Yemen; also amchoor, a seasoning made from powdered green mangoes particular to north Indian cooking, plus Himalayan pink salt. Over at Tesco, fancy “Forestiere” mushrooms — “the first new mushroom variety to launch in the UK in 30 years” — are doing brisk business for anyone who finds white or button varieties too common or garden.
Are these small upgrades a way to give us a sense of control over the tiny universe between our chopping board and our hob? Have we become more adventurous in our tastes during lockdown? Or just more pretentious?
“People are looking for something that’s got a bit of uniqueness,” says Jade Hoai, director of purchasing and operations at Whole Foods. “They want ways to be more creative with their staples, to continue to nourish themselves but find new flavours and opportunities to spice things up. Things like applewood-smoked salt elevate the dish.”
Who knows: perhaps we’ll come out of this with Michelin-star palates. Or perhaps some of us have already reached the same conclusion as @FiftyFootDoll: “I think I could easily live on toast and Super Noodles.”
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