Spice Jungle

Average Vendor Rating
0 out of 5

The Official Spice Purveyors of The Jazz Chef

SPICEJUNGLE.COM

The only thing that the SpiceJungle website lacks is smell. Otherwise, its online store is a feast for the senses, and absolutely the best, and, more often than not, the most affordable place for the fearless foodie to connect with a much higher quality of both the spices of their traditions, and exotic sensual adventures into tastes that will send your culinary kudos from family and friends soaring!  This is, without question, now my favorite food adventure site on the web!

Spice Jungle home page

The Spice Jungle is not only a fabulous place to buy all sorts of great new things to try: It's a feast for the eyes, and one of the best written commercial websites out there.

SJ offers a wide, wide variety of the very best spices from around the world. Along with the many many exotics, and spices more common to Europe and Asian tables, even their "basics" common herbs and spices, are a mind-blowing level of quality and freshness.

The company is reminiscent of the old Abercrombie & Fitch catalog, or the early Banana Republic catalogs of cool stuff, well described, that creates a sense of adventure, which, for those of us who are food adventurers, is the ideal environment to explore.

Their sister company, Beanilla, also gets top marks from us. Their delivery is timely and the spices are well packaged. The best way to play? Buy the smaller quantities of the exotics at first and see what they do!

The tired bay leaf specimens in the supermarkets made the scrumptious scent an obligatory thing that I put in soups 'because you do.'  I simply couldn't really smell it, so I never quite got the taste of the thing.

After opening the container that arrived from Spice Jungle, and this amazing nose of true, fresh bay leaf hit me, I became a big fan not only of the bodacious bay, but of SpiceJungle.com's top-drawer product.

Since then I have been cooking with a variety of new tastes served up by SJ, from cubeb berries and nigella seeds to fenugreek leaves to... raspberry powder? Yea... raspberry powder!

Their website is a 10+ for layout, and they photograph the spices so perfectly that you can really get a sense of everything but... smell. Groupings of spices are well laid out and totally intuitive to navigate.

 

Just click on a spice that interests you, and not only will you get access to the enlarged photo, but the crack staff at SpiceJungle will give you lots of great ideas as to how to use the spice, often throwing in an entertaining story, or the history of the spice and how it has been used.

 

 

 

As you'll notice from the photo above, they offer up their products in sizes from household modest to restaurant industrial. So, no matter whether you're a weekend warrior or the buyer for a top restaurant in New Orleans, you can find a size and price that works for you. SJ posts all of the prices per ounce below each size, so you can figure out what is the best deal.

Shipping is free, and all spices that are kosher-certified are marked, if keeping the K is your way.

So one of the best things about this online merchant is that it is ideally suited for the improvisational chef. Adventures in foods that you've never cooked with before can yield amazing new stuff. What I recommend is that you buy a sample, find out how it is used in traditional cooking, and then, once you understand the taste, textures and colors of it, put it back into your fusions of culinary creativity!

 

Spice is the variety of life, and mastering spices in the culinary arts is like mastering the color wheel in painting or photography.  If, however, you haven't managed to pass Professor Snapes' Dark Culinary Arts course, or you would rather blend in than blend spices, Spice Jungle has some wonderful blends from around the world that will rock yours. Adobo, Ethiopian, Cajun or Cape Cod... If  it comes from any corner of the world, they are likely to have it.  Are they missing a few?  Suggest them!  I've found that the staff at SpiceJungle L-O-V-E loves what they do, and they are into a new adventure if you have found a gap in their extensive collection!

 

Awarded our Official Gold Diamond Purveyor, all SpiceJungle products have the rare distinction of being Choicestuff™ winners as well. We'll go one further, though: SpiceJungle.com has been named The Jazz Chef's official spice purveyor. If they have it, we buy it here.

This is not an honor we bestow lightly.  You'll find links to their products throughout our recipes. Let them change your cooking life too. Browse their site, and try something new today!

 

 

Showing 49–64 of 72 results