Even though she descends from a spice dynasty, Caitlin PenzeyMoog never considered writing on the subject. She didn’t think anyone would be interested.
Her maternal grandparents established The Spice House in Wauwatosa in 1957. It would later be acquired by PenzeyMoog’s aunt, while her uncle branched off and opened Penzeys.
“I grew up surrounded by spices and good food, and completely took it for granted — until I went to college,” says PenzeyMoog in a recent phone interview with Isthmus.
After some gentle prodding from co-workers at the A.V. Club, the pop culture website where PenzeyMoog is deputy managing editor, she penned the article, “Salt Grinders are Bullshit.” Interest in the article was so high that she was offered a book deal. The result is On Spice: Advice, Wisdom, and History with a Grain of Saltiness (Skyhorse Press, $17).
It was a positive experience on several levels. “I was talking to my grandma, thinking about spices more than I had since I moved away from Wisconsin,” says PenzeyMoog, who lives in Chicago. “Getting this book deal was a nice opportunity to get back into things I had moved away from. I didn’t realize until I got some distance, how cool the world of spice is.”
PenzeyMoog shares family anecdotes throughout. Recruited at a young age, she and her siblings spent countless hours helping their grandparents with the spice business. “Writing this book was very much a way of connecting with my family and my childhood.”
This is exactly the kind of book cooks need on their bookshelf. Chapters are devoted to the major spices, saffron, vanilla, cinnamon and cassia, nutmeg and mace, cloves and so forth (the proper spices), as well as seeds (fennel, caraway, et. al) and herbs (basil, chervil, dill, et. al.). The author’s definition of what constitutes a spice is far-reaching, including seeds, leaves and minerals — anything we add to food “to make it taste better,” she writes in the preface.
PenzeyMoog explains where and how each spice is grown, giving historical context for how they came to be in our modern world. The spice chapters are cleverly bookended by salt and pepper — which, she terms “the pillars of spice, though all the spices in between are valuable and important.”
Still, this is not an advertisement for high-end spices. “The expensive salt will not make your food taste any better than the cheap salts,” PenzeyMoog declares. She’s also researched what must come under the category of fun facts; throwing mustard seeds at vampires, for instance, was considered a perfect defense because “vampires are compulsive counters and will pause their vile plans to obsessively tally any group of items thrown their way.”
The appendices round out the book nicely with definitions of spice blends, as well as about 25 pages of spice-centric recipes.
“I would encourage people to use spices however they see fit,” says PenzeyMoog. “A while back it seemed the general attitude among food writers was a very prescriptive way of doing things. This book pushes beyond those ways. If you really like [a spice] you should figure out how to use it in everything.”
Caitlin PenzeyMoog will discuss On Spice at the Driftless Historium & Mount Horeb Area Historical Society, 100 S. 2nd St., Mount Horeb, on April 6 from 2-4 p.m.
