How often do you replace your jars of spices & herbs?

We have a small gourmet shop in town that has several shelves of bulk spices and herbs in large jars. I can run in and ask for an ounce of tarragon or ginger or ground cumin, etc. They scoop it out of the jar, weigh it, and seal in in small plastic envelopes. It beats buying a whole new jar each time because I can wash my spice jars and reuse them. Plus, the price is less than half of buying a new jar of the same spice at the supermarket.

That is a great way to do it, especially if you do not use any particular spice or herb a lot. Several stores here in Redding have bulk, but they often do not smell very fresh. For years, I have bought my dried spices and herbs (the ones I don't grow myself) from Penzey's Spice. If I use one on rare occasions, I buy the smallest they have. But if it is Thyme, Tarragon, (both die back in winter) I buy in larger amounts. They stay fresh for a very long time when stored properly. When I start running out of them in my spice cabinet, I check my bulk supply and refill my jars, then reorder as needed....about every six to eight months.

Very good advice from Karen. The secret is to keep them, particularly the dry herbs in the dark. Light will ruin them very quickly. So, don't keep them on an open rack, and check the light on the one's in your store.

I agree with Karen: buy the smallest amount possible, because you need to use it up in a few months. I "weed out" my spice rack about twice a year - anything that is past the use-by date, anything I've had (and had open) for long enough for the the oils to have dried out and the aroma diminished - out it goes. It might be interesting to ask the people at the buy-in-bulk store how long the bulk supplies last before they are replaced. Also, whether they empty the jar out before putting the new stuff in, if they re-use the same bulk containers. Topping up old with new ....

If one were to take an inventory of our spice rack, one would find very few containers of dried herbs, as we prefer fresh and can get them year-round now, either from our own garden or from a local grocery. The exceptions are Turkish bay leaves in a ziploc container and dried Thyme leaves for when I'm too lazy to strip them from sprigs. Spices are almost always purchased whole, as we have a dedicated spice grinder (aka an electric coffee grinder), in which form they have fairly long shelf lives. The one herb/spice that has been around for a while now is the huge quantity of Iranian saffron bestowed upon me by a former graduate student (from Iran) and which I keep as far away from light and air as I can.

Mark Lipton

[Jenise]

I'm a lot like Karen and Mark. I buy a lot of fresh, but I don't always consider fresh and dried interchangeable. I loved dried French thyme, for instance, and find it so different from the thyme in my garden that I need both. Like Karen, I reload anything I'm getting low on, or replace anything I've had for a more than a year, from Penzey's approximately every six months, a decision driven every single time by the rate at which I use up 8 ounces of tellicherry pepper. I use a *lot* of pepper, and 100% tellicherry has no equal.