Ten Spice Secrets to Upgrade Your Thanksgiving Experience

1) Celery Root
A fist-sized bulb that contains a muted celery flavor and can be boiled like a potato, celery root can be an excellent flavoring for a blander dish (in this class, we boiled the root in milk before mashing it together with potatoes and truffle salt). It can also be a star on its own in celery root soup. Gonson recommends looking for celery roots that still have their leaves on, as they’ll remain fresher for longer. In stores that carry this specialty item, such as Whole Foods, the leafiest bulbs can often be found on the back of the shelf.

2) Szechuan Peppers
Pop Rocks ain’t got nothin’ on these bizarre natural wonders. Stick a Szechuan pepper in your mouth, and you’ll begin to feel a fizzing sensation on your tongue, before it numbs the tip completely. Hold on a minute longer, and a sweet and decidedly sour flavor will begin to fill your mouth. Why use these distracting spices in a recipe? Because they’re really cool, and your little brother will love them. A recent visit to Polcari’s revealed that even Boston’s spice distributors sometimes have difficulty finding this spice, but Gonson says that it’s sometimes available at Whole Foods.

3) Better than Boullion
While many cooks insist on making their own stock for dishes, Gonson uses this flavoring mix, available at Whole Foods, as a shortcut when time is of the essence.

4) Lime Juice
Use lime juice to keep fruits tasting fresh—and distinctive. “While many cooks use lemon juice in their apple pies to keep the apples from going brown, I always use lime juice,” Gonson says. “It ensures that your apple pie is going to taste different from anyone else’s, and it’s just a more complex flavor."

5) Vermont Soy
These artisan soy milk and tofu products, available at Whole Foods, can add complexity and flavor to vegan or lactose-free recipes where other mass-produced soymilks can fall short. You can use Vermont Soy milk with a dollop of olive oil in place of cow's milk for many recipes, including the celery root-infused mashed potato dish mentioned earlier.

6) Caraway Seeds
Caraway seeds are the spice that gives rye bread its unique pungent flavor; they can also solo as a seasoning for sautéed greens, especially cabbage. The recipe Gonson used in class was simple: sliced purple cabbage, sautéed and sprinkled with toasted seeds. Caraway seeds are slightly more popular than the other ingredients on this list—look to buy them at the best price, in your local supermarket or spice shop.

7) Candied Ginger
Sure, everyone’s experienced ginger as a bright foil to the savory ingredients in stir fries and sushi, but ginger also has a place in desserts. It adds spiciness that’s more sophisticated than cinnamon or nutmeg to sweet, fruit-based soups and pies. One of Gonson’s favorite summer/fall dishes is the Gruffalo Crumble, where candied ginger is cubed and mixed with chopped apples, pears and cranberries, covered in a mix of oatmeal and butter, and baked. The ginger melts and binds the fruit, and makes each of its fellow flavors pop.

8) Sumac
This esoteric, rust-colored spice adds a sweet, tart flavor to grains, lentils, dip (especially hummus), meats and desserts. In this class, students blended quinoa (a Middle Eastern grain that can be eaten in place of oatmeal for breakfast, or in place of rice as a side dish) with sumac and flax seed for a slightly sweet side dish, which would pair well with a more intense meat entrée. Available in most specialty stores and supermarkets.

9) Za’atar
Sumac is also present in this Mediterranean mix of spices, which includes sesame seeds, salt and thyme. It works best with Mediterranean recipes and ingredients, like tomatoes, feta and mozzarella cheese, and eggplant. In Gonson’s class, the chef massaged slices of eggplant with olive oil, tossed them in za’atar, and baked them in the oven. Za’atar is a simple herb mix that can keep for several months, so Gonson suggests picking it up as cheaply as possible, at a supermarket like Star Market.

10) Herb-infused Butter
A simple finishing trick for any side vegetable dish is a quick herb-infused butter. Rather than, say, roasting a pan of potatoes with rosemary and thyme, keep the flavors fresh and evenly-distributed by sautéing a few fresh sprigs of the herbs in a pan of butter. Then, right before you serve the potatoes, pour the mix into the pan and give it a generous toss, so that every bite is bathed in the complementary flavors of the herbs.

Photos of food and Cambridge Center for Adult Education student Marc Baizman taken by Ryan Weaver.