How to Memorize Spices, Herbs and Blends: 100 Flashcards

Deck NK0602, Spices, Herbs & Blends, holds 100 cards and is really two decks stapled together. Cards 1-62 are a spice rack: the spice-versus-herb distinction, around thirty individual spices, 12 herbs and 15 regional blends. Cards 63-100 leave the kitchen for the encyclopaedia: the spice trade, storage chemistry, food safety and two excellent myth-busting cards. Study them as two piles.

Sample cards

What the 100 cards cover

• Single spices — black pepper, white pepper, cinnamon, cassia, nutmeg, mace, ginger, galangal, turmeric, clove, saffron, cumin, cardamom, fennel, mustard seed, coriander, vanilla, paprika, cayenne, allspice, star anise, asafoetida, grains of paradise, long pepper, sumac, fenugreek, tamarind, caraway, ambergris.
• Herbs — bay leaf, basil, oregano, thyme, rosemary, sage, parsley, cilantro, mint, dill, tarragon, chives.
• Blends — curry powder, garam masala, five-spice powder, za'atar, ras el hanout, berbere, baharat, harissa, Cajun seasoning, jerk seasoning, shichimi togarashi, panch phoron, quatre épices, mixed spice, pumpkin pie spice.
• History and trade — the Venetian monopoly from the 8th to the 15th century, Vasco da Gama's 1499 voyage, the monsoon winds discovered around 40 CE, cloves at Terqa, the Ebers Papyrus, New World spices.
• Handling — two-year shelf life for whole spices, six months for ground, tempering, spice rubs, mortar and pestle, irradiation, ICS 67.220.

Two tips for this deck

1. Build a contrast table for the licorice cluster before your first review. Four backs say almost the same thing: fennel has a "licorice-like flavor", star anise has a "licorice-like flavor", caraway has a "licorice-like flavor", and tarragon has a "slight anise flavor". In review they are indistinguishable. Add one real dish to each — fennel seed in Italian sausage, star anise in pho, caraway in rye bread, tarragon in béarnaise — and do the same for the near-twin pairs the deck sets up on purpose: cinnamon/cassia, coriander/cilantro, nutmeg/mace, ginger/galangal, black/white pepper, sweet/smoked paprika.

2. Fix four cards, then start. Cards 3 and 78 ask the identical question about India's 75% share — delete one. Card 12 dates the first use of cloves in Mesopotamia to around 1700 BCE while card 79 dates the same Terqa find to 1720 BCE; keep 79, which names the site. Card 76 asks for the most common form of Salmonella contamination but answers with a statistic (about 7% of shipments, an FDA figure covering 2007-2009 imports) — rewrite the front to match the number. Card 82 asks which spice appears when Joseph is sold into slavery and answers only "spice merchants are mentioned" — Genesis 37:25 names the caravan's cargo as gum, balm and myrrh, so put that on the back. And soften card 88: it states flatly that there is no clinical evidence that spices affect health, where the sourced claim is narrower — no high-quality clinical evidence that spices prevent or treat disease.

Three ingredients also appear inside blends without ever getting their own card: Sichuan pepper, nigella and Scotch bonnet. Write those three, and the blend cards stop being lists of unknowns. Hints are empty on all 100 cards.

Where to find it

Sign in at flip-it.app and search the library for code NK0602. Two neighbours in the same category: How to Learn International Culinary Terms and How to Learn Coffee, Wine and Cocktails.