When folks at McCormick started putting together the spice company's first new cookbook in 30 years, they knew exactly what they wanted. They also knew -- thanks to decades of calls and letters and recipe brochures -- exactly what consumers wanted.
The result, "McCormick/Shilling's New Spice Cookbook," pays homage to decades of experience with spices and seasonings, but has its culinary feet planted firmly in the '90s.
"We tried -- after reading a lot of cookbooks -- to make this one as simple and easy visually, so that someone who isn't a trained home economist, or isn't a well-trained cook, can use this book and have good success with it," said Jack Felton, retiring director of corporate communications for McCormick, who was the driving force behind the book.
About a dozen people, along with designers and testers and proofreaders, assembled the cookbook, which is sort of the offspring of the 1964 cookbook "Spices of the World." (The older book was revamped in 1978.) But the new book has plenty of up-to-the minute touches.
"We tried to make it user friendly," said Diane Hamel, manager, communication arts for McCormick, who was involved in the book's design.
"It's in three sections, and the first section is easy family recipes," Mr. Felton said. Many of these came from the company's "Quick Tips," recipe cards with easy-to-prepare dishes that were offered to consumers at the spice shelves of stores. The "easy family" section of the cookbook is designed to allow busy people to return home from work and prepare a meal that makes the food taste "like it's been cooked for hours," Mr. Felton said. "But you can have a meal in about 20 minutes."
"We had over a hundred of these cards that rotated through the retail grocery stores through the years," said Camille Appel, McCormick's manager of consumer communications, "and there are some that were much more popular than others." McCormick also used studies and focus groups to choose the most popular, and most useful, recipes. "We know consumers want easy recipes, they want fewer ingredients, not a whole lot, they want the ingredients to be readily available in the grocery store, no exotic things that they can't find, and they want easy directions and nutrition information.
"The other thing we tried to do," Mr. Felton said, because the company has always gotten so many questions about spices, is to give a brief history of spices and then a date line of spice lore. The time line starts with 2600 B.C.: "Ancient records show that onion and garlic were fed to laborers who build the Great Pyramids." It also makes note of 50 B.C. ("Romans introduced mustard seed to England") and A.D. 1835 ("Chile powder was invented in Texas") and 1971 ("Spice trading with China reopened"). There's also a section with details about each spice, including pictures, and a section on "General Cooking Instructions" -- everything from storing spices, to food safety, to how long to roast a goose. "So it's a pretty complete reference book," Mr. Felton said.
The goal was to make the most of spices in each recipe, not to load up every dish with a lot of different ones. "We said, let's make sure the spices make the difference in the recipe, but let's just use the ones that make that difference," Mr. Felton said.
Nor did they want to hop on the "hot and spicy" bandwagon. "Spice use is up 5 percent in this country, which is a tremendous increase," he said. "A lot of that is due to people eating hotter food -- Mexican and Thai and some Middle East things that have a lot of seasoning. But we didn't just deliberately try to load this one up with all the hot spices. It's got a lot of variety."
The second part of the book is "Fine Dining." "Here we did a survey from the old cookbook and some friends we have a lot of respect for," Mr. Felton said, asking, "if you're going to do some entertaining, and have maybe one or two couples over, what would you serve?" Some of the recipes are based on ones in the old cookbook, though they've been updated to meet today's nutrition sensibilities, with less fat and salt. " 'Fine Dining' is a lot of classic food, done again in easy steps, but they take a little bit longer to do, and you have to have a little bit more skill," he said.
But "Fine Dining" also has an international dimension, because McCormick asked its overseas employees to contribute. "We asked what are favorite ethnic recipes in Singapore and Hong Kong and in the Philippines and in Mexico City?" Mr. Felton said. "They've been adapted to American tastes and American ingredients."
The last part of the book is "Entertaining." "So many cookbooks give you recipes for 8 or 12 people, but not hors d'oeuvres for 24 or 30 people," Mr, Felton said. "This does. And it sets up a simple way to entertain -- for instance, there's a Chesapeake brunch, and it gives you all kinds of alternatives as to what you might serve."
Among party suggestions are a tea party, a "do-it-yourself" curry party, and a Caribbean feast. The latter includes a recipe that became a great favorite around the tasting tables at McCormick: It's called "Hop, Skip and Go Naked Punch," with a limeade base, rum, beer, vanilla and orange extracts and cinnamon. "We had quite a scuffle with, shall we say, some of the older home economists over at the taste kitchens," Mr. Felton said, "who said, 'Jack, you're not going to put that in the cookbook.' And I said, 'Of course we are, we want it to be fun, we want people to use it and enjoy it.' "
If using the cookbook is fun for consumers, it may be because creating it was so much fun for the McCormick staff. Under the direction of Marianne Gillette, manager of product evaluation, and Ellen Gibb, manager of performance testing, a battery of home economists, cooks and tasters prepared recipes over and over and checked the results for inclusion in the book. Some recipes were tested as many as 14 times.
"The kitchen gets pretty popular when we're cooking food," Ms. Gibb said.
Pina colada souffle, egg nog, and the Caribbean punch were especially popular.
"One of the keys to this cookbook," said Ms. Gibb, "was we had the professionals coming up with the recipes, making sure they worked. But then we had two other people . . . test every recipe to make sure it worked. . . . It should be foolproof now. Anybody should be able to go out and do it if they read the recipe."
Throughout it all, they kept reminding each other, "it's a spice cookbook," and looked for innovative dishes where spice really had an impact. Spice ice cream -- vanilla flavored with cloves and anise, or nutmeg, or cinnamon or, surprise, crushed green and black pepper with coconut extract; a vanilla sauce for lobster (butter, lemon juice and a touch of vanilla); and a Cajun salad with parsley, Creole seasoning, garlic, cumin, lemon peel and red pepper are some recipes where a deft touch of spice made a difference.
Despite nine months of intensive cooking and tasting, the recipe testers, on the whole, are sorry the project is over.
Betsy Voss, who was a homemaker before she was drafted to test recipes for the cookbook, worked on the 'Fine Dining' section. Cooking for McCormick was "much more fun than at home," Ms. Voss said, even though she was making six or seven dishes a day. "I got spoiled because I would take home a lot of leftovers."
"Now I'm not so afraid to try new recipes," said Merle Wilson, a lab technician in performance testing. "That was our goal, to have everything easy."
Another tester, Karen Sowizral, a McCormick product analyst, said, "I don't really cook from recipes. It's a challenge to be creative on demand," following a recipe carefully and measuring every ingredient.
"It is a challenge. You have a tendency to skip writing everything down," said Carolyn Wille, administrative secretary in performance testing and culinary product development.
There were other challenges, such as an accidental chicken flambe, and a few arguments over what to name some dishes. All were resolved.
"It's really fun to start at the beginning, with a piece of paper and then see [the recipe] in the book -- that's really exciting," Ms. Sowizral said.
Would they do it again?
"In a heartbeat," Ms. Voss said.
Eventually the book will be in bookstores. For now, it's available by mail from McCormick for $24.95, plus $3 handling and postage. Write McCormick/Shilling Spices. P.O. Box 2026, Rock Island, Ill. 61204. Or call (800) 574-7742.
Here are some of the recipes:
Cajun Salad With Six-Season Dressing
Serves 6
1 pound medium-size or large shrimp, cooked, peeled and deveined
1 15-ounce can pinto beans, drained
1 11-ounce can whole-kernel corn, drained
1 2 1/2 -ounce can sliced ripe olives, drained
1 green bell pepper, chopped
12 cherry tomatoes, halved
lettuce
DRESSING:
1/2 cup olive oil
1/2 cup ketchup
1 tablespoon cider vinegar
2 tablespoon parsley flakes
1 1/2 teaspoons Creole seasoning
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
1/2 teaspoon ground cumin
1/2 teaspoon lemon peel
1/4 teaspoon ground red pepper
Place shrimp, beans, corn, olives and green pepper in large salad bowl and toss lightly.
Place dressing ingredients in 2-cup glass measure. Beat with fork until well-combined.
Pour dressing over shrimp mixture, add tomatoes, toss gently.
Cover and refrigerate at least 2 hours.
Toss salad just before serving and serve on a bed of lettuce.
Sauteed Sesame Grapes
Makes 40 to 50 grapes
1 pound seedless grapes (preferably Thompson)
1 egg
1 tablespoon water
1 1/2 teaspoons ground ginger
1 1/2 teaspoons garlic powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1/3 cup sesame seeds
1/3 cup dry bread crumbs
2 tablespoons vegetable or canola oil
Rinse grapes and set aside in bowl of cold water.
Place egg in medium-sized bowl and beat with fork. Add water, ginger, garlic powder and salt and mix well.
Place flour in plastic bag.
Combine sesame seeds and bread crumbs in separate bag.
Prepare a few grapes at a time: remove from water but don't dry; shake in flour; dip in egg mixture; and shake in sesame-bread-crumb mixture. Place coated grapes on plate and repeat until all grapes have been coated. (Grapes may be prepared up to 4 hours ahead of time and refrigerated until ready to cook.)
When ready to cook, heat oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Add grapes and saute, turning until golden on all sides. Serve hot as an appetizer or as a side dish with ham, poultry or seafood.
Spice Ice cream
Serves 8 to 10
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
1/8 teaspoon pure anise extract, or
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg, or
3/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon, or
1 tablespoon crushed green peppercorns
1 teaspoon coarse-ground black pepper
1/4 teaspoon coconut extract
1 quart vanilla ice cream
Soften ice cream just enough to stir. Do not allow ice cream to melt. Spoon into large bowl and add one of the seasoning options. Mix well, cover and refreeze immediately.
Note: The spices can also be used to season chocolate ice cream.