Spice, seasoning and flavour intelligence
Structured answers about spices, with the evidence attached. Every claim carries its grade — established fact, traditional practice, or our own judgement — and where we do not know something, we say so rather than filling the gap.
Spice profiles
“What is cumin, and what do I do with it?”
131 profiles covering botany, production, flavour, storage, buying, history and safety — each claim graded and sourced.
Pairings
“What spices go with pork?”
Ranked, explained pairings across 72 foods, with the cooking context and the caveats attached.
Substitutes
“What can I use instead of cumin?”
Ratios where they are defensible, and an explicit statement of where each swap fails — which is the part most sources leave out.
Blends
“What is actually in garam masala?”
56 blends recorded as attributed regional and commercial versions, because most of them have no single correct recipe.
Guides
“Why does blooming spices actually work?”
14 explanations for the questions that are not about any one spice — mechanism, history, buying, and what the health evidence does and does not support.
Spices and health
“Is turmeric actually anti-inflammatory?”
What the clinical evidence supports, with the evidence level and the exposure studied attached to every finding — and the claims we will not make, with the reason.
Spices people confuse
Direct comparisons where the difference genuinely changes what you cook. There are 155 in all, and every spice profile links the ones it is half of.
Tools
Spice quantity converter
Convert between teaspoons, tablespoons, cups, grams and ounces using a density figure specific to the spice and its form — because a teaspoon of saffron and a teaspoon of turmeric are not the same weight.
Blend scaler
Scale any recorded blend version from proportional parts to a target batch weight, keeping the proportions intact and saying plainly which ingredients have no recorded proportion.
Storage and freshness adviser
Check whether a spice is still worth using, from its form, its age and how it has been kept — with the mechanisms behind the answer and an explicit refusal to turn staleness into a safety verdict.
Chilli heat comparison
Compare chilli heat as overlapping bands rather than single numbers, with the reason each range is as wide as it is — and an explicit refusal to say one chilli is twice as hot as another.
How we handle evidence
Most of what is written about spices mixes botany, food chemistry, cultural tradition and personal preference without distinguishing them. SpiceHQ keeps them apart. A pairing recorded as culinary convention is labelled as convention; a coumarin intake figure is labelled as evidence and cites the opinion it comes from; a disputed historical claim stays disputed rather than being resolved for tidiness.