Blog Archives
Spices 101: What is Pepper?
Go to your dining table right now. Go look at your place setting. What are the two things that always must be there. That’s right salt, and pepper. And don’t tell me you don’t have salt and pepper, because everybody knows a real dining table’s gotta have salt and pepper shakers. If you don’t have ’em, buy ’em. But hey, what is salt and pepper, exactly?
Actually I take that back, everyone knows what salt is. It’s salt. It’s made of sodium and chlorine and turns into a cool, white crystal rock thing that makes all food taste better. But! Let’s be real, everyone here has seen pepper before, but most people like yourself are probably dying to know what it really is. Well, I’m glad you asked.
Black Pepper
Origin: India
Appearance: Very small, round, black berries
Scent: Fruity, spicy
Taste: Spicy, dark, pungent
Foods: Like everything ever
Rareness: Common
Christmastime Favorite: How To Make Wassail Pt. 2 – Recipe
We covered some of the history of spiced Christmas cider, known as wassail, in Part 1 of this article. Read up if you missed it, or read on for our recipe!
As some of you may know, PCFG will be providing free wassail at the Patchogue Village Wassailing Crawl this Saturday! If you live on Long Island and will be in the area, stop by and partake in some merriment as Long Island History and Pub continues a Christmas tradition that’s all but lost in the U.S. in modern times. You may learn a thing or two, and at very least it’ll help get into the Christmas spirit despite the surprisingly mild (and pleasant) season we’ve been having so far!
If you can’t make it, well there’s always the option of making it at home. Bear in mind, we will update this post at a later date with photos from the wassailing walk we’re attending on Saturday!
Christmastime Favorite: How To Make Wassail Pt. 1
About 10 years ago, I found myself at a Christmas party at a local department/craft store with my mother, where they were serving this mystical drink known as “wassail”. It was some sort of mystery concoction made of apple cider, spices, and other fruits. Back then I was too young to drink hard cider, so plain old pure cider was my favorite thing to drink; I had pretty high expectations for this weird brew of fruit juices and spices I’d never heard of. To be frank, I got my shit rocked. Wassail was one of the greatest things I’d ever drunk and it had launched a sequence of events that guaranteed Christmas would never be the same after that.
I can’t believe how much that last sentence makes this sound like the opening monologue of some awful Disney channel high-school movie about Christmas vacation.
Spices 101: What is Cardamom?
Recently a ton of supermarkets closed down in the northeast, especially here on Long Island, resulting from their blanket corporation of A&P going out of business. It was really sad, considering how many people lost their jobs, and to see some old standbys like Waldbaums and Path-Mark close up shop, never to be seen again. Well, sometimes the best way to move past a tragedy is by finding any good you can in it. In this case, legendary clearance prices on all items. I hate to sound like classic consumerist American, but we were able to find some insane deals on food in the last few days when items were being discounted 70%, 80%, and even 95% off.
We took that opportunity to splurge on some cardamom pods, a staple curry ingredient which normally runs for, ohhhh, $15 a bottle. So yeah. Shit’s expensive.
Cardamom
Origin: India
Appearance: Small, green pods
Scent: Fruity, flowery, zesty
Taste: Sweet, zesty, fresh
Foods: Indian, Nordic European
Rareness: Rare
…son of a bitch I just realized these are 3 months out of date. Oh well. We got them for three bucks, as opposed to like $15.
Spices 101: What is Coriander? What is Cilantro?
I like to use the word coriander a lot when joking about high-class foods. Though coriander is yet another spice that sounds really complicated and fancy, but in reality isn’t as big a deal as one would think. It’s all in the name. It just sounds ritzy as hell. Four syllables, a bunch of vowels, doesn’t look like any other words… It has to be a big deal right? Weirdly enough, coriander is actually just the seeds of cilantro plants…
Coriander
Origin: Asia
Appearance: Tan, spherical seeds / coarse, beige powder
Scent: Sweet, citric
Taste: Nutty, fresh, Spice-spicy
Foods: Indian, Asian, and Middle Eastern cuisine
Rareness: Uncommon
The Poor Couple's Food Guide 
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