Week 18: Parsley, sage, rosemary or thyme?

At Brainfood we’re all about systems of organization. We label our pantry shelves (baking staples here, vinegars and bottled sauces there) and our fridge shelves (cheese and dairy/vegetables and fruit). Our spices boxes-- they’re alphabetized, thank you. So what was going on when students came into class to find twenty—unlabeled—bowls filled with herbs and spices lined up on their worktables? Herbpocalypse now? Early April Fools? A really, really elaborate chili recipe? Nah, it’s just our annual herb and spice identification challenge.

For the challenge, groups of 3 students got 15 minutes to identify 20 different unlabelled herbs and spices. Though we have used plenty of spices throughout the year, the mystery herbs and spices included two (cardamom and fennel seed) that we haven’t used yet, as well as a quartet of herbs I jokingly called the Big Green Question Mark: flat leaf parsley, curly parsley, cilantro, and basil. Armed with a word bank of all the different herbs and spices on the table, their noses, and a pen, the students gamely worked through a fairly stiff challenge. I had the much more amusing task of timing them and eavesdropping on their detective efforts. One student scrunched her nose as she peered into a bowl of purple buds (lavender), ultimately declaring that it smelled like blueberry bagels. Another group huddled around a group of leafy green herbs, definitively picked out the cilantro because it smelled and tasted like salsa. One bold student bit into a whole clove, much to the surprise of the rest of her group.

The fifteen minutes flew by, and we regrouped to see how the Brainfood gumshoes had fared. There were a few group aha’s, when it came to common mixups like cumin/coriander, but the true tale was in the numbers. All groups correctly identified 10 or more herbs and spices. 5 groups correctly identified 16 or more herbs and spices, and 1 group got 19 out of 20 right. For our celebratory snack that day, we whipped up some herb and spice heavy recipes—including Jamaican jerk chicken, pasta with fresh pesto, and herb-dusted oven fries. It was the perfect ending to our very savory day.

-Carina