Well I just inherited something interesting...

[Lugaru]

My roomie is moving out (kinda breaks my heart) but in the process of cleaning out our cupboards I found a large cache of middle eastern spices, which I belive actually belonged to my landlord 3 years ago when he used to live on our floor. This is soo freaking fascinating... I need to go bug my irani ex roomie (he's on the 1st floor now) to find out what these spices are. Here's what I can make of it so far:

1 large (about 2 large fists) bag of dried mint
2 giant tupperware containers of some strange herbs that smell like maple
1 jar with a picture of a carrot on it... oddly enough the contents smell like a mix of carrots (carrot greens?) and basil... weird.
1 bag of some long coiled stuff that smelled very unpleasant.
1 small zip lock bag of saffron (caching!)
1 jar of greyish purple... grains? Pebbles? Inside there's a note printed in some arabic language. Very curious about this one.

Well I cant wait to look further into this mistery tomorrow. I'll keep you guy's posted.

 

[Otter]

It'll definitely be interesting to find out what the stuff is. Unfortunately, most of it probably lost it's usefullness in cooking long ago. Anyway, now you know why your cupboard smelled so nice!

 

[GB]

Lugaru it sounds like you found a culinary treasure trove. Of course like Otter pointed out they have probably lost their punch if they are that old, but it sure couldn't hurt to try, and since you have smelled some of them and you can actually smell things then that is a very good sign. Please keep us informed. I am dying to know what everything is!!! The maple smelling one has me most curious I think.

 

[crewsk]

Lugaru, I think I may know what the one that smells like maple is. It may be Fenugreek. It is an annual Mediterranina & Asiatic herb with aromatic seeds that is used worldwide as a culinary spice as well as a food sothing to the stomack. I have a bottle of Fenugreek seed capsules that I took when nursing my daughter(it helps a mothers milk come in). The only problem I had with it was that I started to smell like a vat of maple syrup. Not a bad thing, just annoying when bees won't leave you alone!

 

[Lugaru]

Thanks guy's and thanks for the background on that one Crewsk... it's VERY likely that this is what it is and that means I now have one name to go by looking for recipies. Also as for the age yeah, very true.. I already threw out a few things that just had no discenrable aroma but some of the survivors seem like they will be part of a few experiments. There's one dish my ex-roomie made for me which Im really curious about since it was soo good (rice, red beans, stewed meat and greens with tons of herbs) and if I have the ingredients Im making it!

 

[crewsk]

You are quite welcomf Lugaru! Sometimes a little bell just goes off in my head. If you hadn't said it smelled like maple I would have never thought of it. Here's a couple of recipes I found using fenugreek.

Hot Fenugreek Dip (this one looks pretty good)
http://www.1worldrecipes.com/recipe.asp?r=682



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