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Take a peek at your spice cabinet: If it’s anything like mine, you’ve got a mix of plastic and glass jars, and maybe a few pouches here and there, too. All of them are from different retailers, ranging from the nearby dollar store to Kalustyan’s, and there’s at least one duplicate bottle, from the time you forgot you already had a certain spice at home—in my case, cardamom.
Though it’s not the prettiest or best-organized cabinet out there, it’s deeply functional, and that’s what matters most to me. However, I wondered if—given the variety of spices in my kitchen (and their containers)—there was anything I could or should be doing to extend their shelf lives. Though spices don’t typically go bad or mold like other ingredients, they can lose their potency in a matter of months. So, I reached out to Ethan Frisch, co-founder and co-CEO of Burlap & Barrel, a spice company that works directly with farmers to source its products, who had an unorthodox answer to my spice storage question.
