NEWSLETTER: Spring 2007

• Super Ras el Hanout
• White or Black Pepper
• 2008 Spice Tour of India
• Gluten 
• Travelling around Australia 

Our tenth birthday has passed in a flurry of celebration, and we must say that it was very moving to receive good wishes and congratulations from so many of you – thank you.  It seemed appropriate to mark the occasion by creating a brand new, very best, spice mix, and so our Super Ras el Hanout was born.  Most of you will be familiar with the original Ras el Hanout and its delicate, almost feminine, subtlety and complexity from the combination of 23 different herbs and spices, including saffron.  The new “Super Ras” is built upon the original, with the addition of such exotic spices as grains of paradise, rose petals, cubeb pepper, long pepper, lavender, mastic and more.  The result is a spice blend with a flavour that fills and surprises the palate whilst still remaining true to the original characteristics.  After some discussion, we decided to show it on your mail order form as “Ras el Hanout – Super” so that it sits right beside the original.

Do you sometimes wonder why different recipes call for white or black pepper when you’re quite happy using black all the time?  To recognize the difference, you need to think of a bleak, chilly winter day when only a hot meat pie will do to warm your cockles. That wonderful warmth you experience is due, to a great extent, to white pepper.  Without a strong pepper flavour, it fills your mouth with a lingering, all-encompassing warmth that makes you feel good all over, and warm right down to your toes.  Black pepper, on the other hand, has more aroma and flavour as well as heat, and when we grind black peppercorns over our food, we are looking for all of that.  A white peppercorn is basically a peeled black one, so it is the black piperine-rich skin that contains the characteristic aroma of black pepper.  If you like the flavour as well as the heat, then our Super Grade Black Peppercorns are for you.  

Our 2008 Spice Tour to India is already attracting bookings, and it’s now less than six months until we head off again.  We have some new destinations, including Pushkar in the north, (where we shall travel by camel carts to dine outdoors on the sandy desert dunes) and the luxurious resort of Marari near Alleppey in the south.  So our bags will contain a full range of clothing, from overcoats to swimwear!  We’ll check out some of the seed spices grown in northern India and visiting a Spices Board of India research station … not the destination of the average tourist!  If you would like to know more about the trip, the details are on our website, or you can phone us to have a brochure posted to you.

From time to time you may notice that some of our labels will carry the statement “May contain traces of gluten” so we thought we’d better explain this to you in more detail. Gluten, in the form of wheat starch, is not added to most spices. If it is (in the case of asafoetida) it will be clearly stated within the ingredient listing on the label. However, in some instances we cannot guarantee that products don’t contain traces of gluten, due to cross contamination during growing, harvesting, transportation or processing.

FSANZ (Food Standards Australia & New Zealand) is not helping to alleviate this problem by not setting a minimum standard of 20ppm (parts per million), which is the standard in many countries including the USA, and one which  coeliacs (those who are gluten intolerant) are happy with. By electing to set no minimum level as a standard, even if 3ppm or 5ppm of gluten is detected, FSANZ makes it obligatory to state that the product may contain traces of gluten. Just one or two grains of wheat in a 25 kilo bag of Australian grown fenugreek seeds can give a positive reading.

This has become a very complex issue, and we are reluctant to just put a blanket disclaimer statement on all labels as it makes life even harder for allergy sufferers. We hope that one day a more international standard will be adopted, which would appear to provide more meaningful information for both those intolerant to gluten, and companies who make every effort to supply products with no added gluten.

We’re off-site again on November 4^th, to do a cooking class with Cooking with Company, in the Wauchope area.  For more information, phone Lyn on 02 6585 6495 or email This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it   If you’re in the Canberra region, we’re doing a class at Cooking Co-ordinates on Saturday 17^th November.  You can find out more by phoning 02 6253 5133.  Ian’s in Brisbane to do a class at Black Pearl Epicure on Tuesday 9^th October (phone 07 3257 2144), then we’re at Penola in the Coonawarra on Saturday 20^th October (phone 08 8737 2229), and at Yoey’s in Mt Gambier on the morning of the same day.

Have you noticed our beautiful new labeling?  Nearly every item now carries a recipe or suggestions for use, along with a nutrition panel.  Even though the amount of spice in a total meal is usually too small to bother evaluating, believe it or not, a nutrition panel is required for all spice blends!  Also, to celebrate our tenth birthday, and to welcome in this glorious spring, we have just launched brand new boxes for our famous spice kits.  The contents remain the same fabulous spices, herbs and blends that you know and love, and the new box is cheerful, sturdy, and magnificently time-efficient for our busy fingers.  The new look applies to all our $30.00 kits, while the compact range still has our trademark Herbie’s ribbon tied in a bow, as do the large Herbie’s Favourites and Pantry Start-Up kits.

Enjoy some al fresco entertaining during spring … with plenty of spices, of course!  Happy spicing,                                                                                   

Herbie and Liz