Herbs and spices?

[Rabbitheadlights]

Firstly I'm aware there are much more important things occuring in the world right now and that there is also a cost of living crisis.

However I subscribe to several cookery forums and recently it seems to be a popular opinion that herbs and spices are a luxury? For me they are an integral part of cooking and any meal, they are in fact what makes food joyful and I don't consider them a luxury at all.

Aibu??

@RewildingAmbridge that sounds great, but it's very different from my northern upbringing where there weren't many people from other cultures in our area and dinner would be a tin of supermarket value ravioli!

I do think having a full spice rack with all the cloves and smoked paprika and rosemary etc is quite a middle class thing

In the UK perhaps. This is something I find quite hard to get my head around. In many countries 'cooking' and use of herbs and spices is what everyone does, because we all have to eat.

Many common dishes are very cheap and easy to make with easily available ingredients, often that don't require any refrigeration, ie traditional methods of food preservation from before a time when everyone had fridges.

I'm now thinking of something like pasta putanesca, made from dried pasta and canned tomatoes and anchovies and capers and olives from a jar. Quick, easy, cheap, tasty, adaptable, filling, relatively healthy, no fresh ingredients required, yet this sort of thing is commonly written off as 'too aspirational' for people on lower incomes in the UK.

They are the very opposite. I cook all our meals from scratch and we have a low food budget. We are plant-based and eat very healthily, it's a real focus of our family. Health isn't a luxury.

I can turn half a bag of lentils, an onion and a tin of tomatoes (so £1.50 for three people and leftovers/a work meal) into a delicious meal IF and only if I have spices. So obviously spices are a stable that’s kept in the cupboard ready to turn a quid or so into something more than edible, delicious in fact.

What's the alternative? Eating tasteless meals and living in misery? Spending/i.e. wasting more money?

Neither of these are sensible. You know what is sensible? Keeping spices in your cupboard so your family can eat a nutritious meal that doesn't make you feel like a monk.

Those people sound like they are prioritising the wrong things.

Certainly since I moved down south (now in London) the availability of a huge range of cheap spices is incredible. However, I come from a family that recently were really excited to tell me about this new thing they'd discovered that makes pasta taste amazing - parmesan.

No, they're not extras, they're staples that enable you to eat very cheaply. Without them you either eat stodge or you eat things pre-seasoned which cost a lot more.

It's not just London/SE, but the same in the cities and mill towns of northern England. There's probably not much that you can't get cheaply in larger supermarkets and independent grocers.

But you don't need a huge variety. Probably half a dozen common spices, frozen garlic and ginger, and coriander, parsley and basil growing on the window sill, couple of bottles of chilli and soy sauce and you've massively expanded your repertoire. You can even start small and just get one or two a week until you have everything.

We've got herbs and spices, luckily DD bought half of them do not our expense. I use them a lot for adding extra/different taste to recipes and also cheap meals I do. I guess if you're really struggling, they're not fillers/a major source of nutrition so one of the first things to go from your shop though.

I've discovered Lidl sell some of them for half the price of my usual source, so will be trying those in an effort to keep bills down.

Certainly since I moved down south (now in London) the availability of a huge range of cheap spices is incredible

I think you must have lived in a bit of a backwater to not be able to get herbs and spices easily. I used to buy all my spices from Asian supermarkets in Bradford. I now get my South East Asian spices and pastes from a brilliant Chinese supermarket in Sheffield, and my Indian spices from an excellent Asian supermarket in Rotherham.

Not to derail the thread but which dried herbs and spices would be considered basic that everyone should have even if cooking on a very limited budget?

I’ve been adding black pepper and mixed herbs to my food bank donations this year. They always ask for tinned tomatoes but I figured whatever they are being used for (pasta sauce or soup base maybe?) would need some flavour to be palatable.

curry powder
oregano
garlic powder
chilli powder

cumin
coriander
turmeric
chilli powder
curry powder
garam masala
smoked paprika (possibly)

With the above (and frozen garlic and ginger) you'll be able to make a wide range of Indian/Pakistani and Mexican type meals, which allows you to use pulses and veg to make tasty food.

For example 100 g of chilli powder for 70 p.

Once open I keep them in old jars from jam, pasta sauce, pickle, olives, capers etc.

YAB (a bit) U. Herbs and spices really do make a difference, but if someone is already on such a tight budget that they're skipping meals themselves to feed the kids then they're an enormous luxury.

A bowl of pasta and chopped tomatoes can be much improved with onion, garlic, basil, chilli flakes etc, but eating it without won't do any harm and the additions bring no more nutritional value.

I grew up in single parent family on benefits and salt and pepper were the extent of the seasonings and condiments we had in the house at any time. My Grandparents, despite being a bit better off, were the same. They were gifted a nice spice rack once and we threw it out, unopened and long out of date after they'd died.

Because I didn't grow up with them I struggle now to know what goes with what aside from the real basics and am quite happy with relatively plain food. Thankfully DP is a keen cook and we're in a position to buy whatever groceries take our fancy. He has dozens and dozens of herbs and spices.

I agree, spices are a normal part of everyday cooking. They are what enable you to turn an onion, a tin of chickpeas and a bunch of spinach, or whatever, into a cheap tasty nutritious family meal. I buy the 100g packs (Rajah or East End brands) from the Indian supermarket or the World Foods aisle at big Tesco/ Asda rather than the little glass jars. It works out much, much cheaper.

The big tubs of Thai curry pastes are also good value, especially when combined with block coconut (cost about £1, equivalent to 4 cans of coconut milk).

The paste costs £2-3 but there's enough for 10-15 batches of Thai curry, which you could make with chick peas and cheaper vegetables like carrots, potatoes, frozen green beans, broccoli, mushrooms if on a budget.

You would normally add fish sauce, but the paste has so much flavour that I don't think it would be noticeable if this was missed out, and it's really quick and easy to do.

This thread is hilarious and peak mumsnet. If I was down to my last quid I’d be spending it on half a dozen eggs not a jar of chilli!

@thebeespyjamas Or you just eat the food plain without seasoning. It won't kill you. Many people eat this way because it would be ridiculous to spend even £1 on herbs or spices if you only have £10 to feed yourself for the week.

But you don't need to buy them all at once do you? Buy one or two basic ones then add one or two with your weekly shop. They last for ages and if you are using different ones they won't all run out at the same time.

Not everyone is on the bones of their arse. Some people are genuinely clueless and glad of the advice.

If you'd spent your last pound on 6 eggs, and then you found another pound in a coin return or on the pavement, using it to buy a jar of mixed herbs would make your scrambled egg or omelette a bit nicer. Being poor doesn't mean you have to eat like a 19th century pauper. Sometimes people just don't know.

@PonyPatter44 Alternatively, spending the bonus £1 on some cherry tomatoes or spinach to put in your scrambled eggs would make them more nutritionally valuable, which herbs don't.

Being comfortable doesn't mean you need to eat like a cordon bleu chef either. Plenty of people are quite happy eating unseasoned food. Each to their own.

But if people are literally 'down to their last quid' then obviously half a dozen eggs is a sensible purchase. Then sorting out a referral to a food bank.

But realistically, a box of eggs is only going to make one light meal for 2-3 people, so is only a very short term solution. Although eggs are great for making healthy low cost, quick meals that don't need much cooking so good to always have in.

What this thread is about is whether it's possible to use herbs and spices on a low budget and with food in general, there does need to be a degree of thinking ahead, because once you've bought your herbs and spices, you're much less likely to find yourself in a position where you've nothing in and no money or ideas what to make.

It's more about doing what you can to avoid finding yourself in a position when you have no food, no money, no storecupboard basics, no cooking skills, no equipment and a family used to eating convenience food so they won't eat chick pea curry. Because then, when you have little money, you could buy a tin of chick peas and a couple of potatoes and make a big curry in the slow cooker with the spices you already have.

Apart from very young adults just starting out, the people who have run out of food and have a family to feed have years of experience of feeding themselves, so it's about making the most of that time to know how to feed yourself well on a low budget, so if the shit hits the fan, you can cope without relying on unhealthy convenience food which is almost always more expensive than cooking with basic spices.

When I was really struggling for money I wouldn’t have been able to follow some recipes that have a number of herbs or spices I don’t regularly use

pots or bags of chilli, oregano, bay leaves, cumin, garam masala and ginger go a long way and can be bought cheaply

i now use frozen herbs, chilli, ginger and garlic but the cost around £1.99 each I couldn’t afford that at one point it would have seemed frivolous

now I also buy tins of ready made spice mixes then at times add extra ginger or chilli it saves on throwing away stale spices but again not something I could afford to do before

@RampantIvy bit rude. No I didn't grow up in a 'backwater' but I didn't grow up somewhere like Bradford where there is obviously tons of cultural diversity. I never said we couldn't get spices, just that there was no culture of eating food that used them. My MIL is only now in her 60s being introduced to paprika and cumin and eating 'foreign' food. My dear old nan certainly didn't put a herb or a spice on anything except maybe some mint on a lamb roast. And I grew up with a mum whose cooking extended to toasting bread or putting something from a tin to a bowl and into the microwave.

It's odd that the UK is so famous for its bland unseasoned food and yet everyone on MN is seemingly horrified at hearing about people without a comprehensive spice rack. Yes it's great to have, no it is not the norm, even though it is becoming more so which is a good thing!

My MIL is only now in her 60s being introduced to paprika and cumin and eating 'foreign' food.

I think that is pretty unusual. I am in my 60s and have been making curries ever since Madhur Jaffrey hit our screens in the 1980s, and I am not alone. All my friends are a similar age and are used to eating a wide range of cuisines.

Sorry @Thatswhyimacat I didn't mean to sound rude. I was just surprised. I live rurally, so it is a 30 mile round trip for me to stock up on spices.

When I was growing up my mum considered salt an unnecessary expense. She had mint in the garden, that was the only herb ever used and curry powder for spices.

Almost all commercially produced food tastes over salted to me, although I do use small amounts i cooking myself, I expect it's very bland to others.