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McCormick Adds a New Twist to Your Meals

© Eve Carr

When I was a little girl growing up in Baltimore, Maryland, I always enjoyed it when my father, Ralph A. Walkling, Sr., would drive near the McCormick® Spice Company. Founded in Baltimore in 1889, it is now the largest spice company in the world. The exotic aromas from this plant reminded me of far off places-and I often wonder if those aromas influenced me to become a food and travel writer.

Today, the McCormick® Company is located in nearby Hunt Valley, Maryland-several hours from my home in Virginia, but I still enjoy their herbs and spices gathered from the corners of the world. Recently, I wrote about how handy it was to have their dried lemon grass on hand.

Now, it's pepper that I want to tell you about. Now just regular ground black pepper, but gourmet pepper that can add a restaurant-style touch to your meals. "The finishing touch on any restaurant dish is realized when the waiter lifts out a pepper mill, twists the top and grinds fresh black pepper over the meal," says Laurie Harrsen, director of public relations at McCormick. "Grinding spices at the moment of use releases all the essential oils, and delivers fresh flavor and aroma to food."

Many of us have our own pepper grinders. Now, McCormick® has introduced Grinders, convenient, bottled spices with built-in grinders for use in cooking, at the table-and on picnics. They are available in three varieties:

Black Peppercorn

Peppercorn Medley (my favorite), a combination of whole black, white, green, and pink peppercorns, whole allspice and whole coriander; and

Seat Salt - naturally harvested from the French Mediterranean. Sea salt, Laurie says, tends to be coarser and have a higher concentration of minerals than table salt. Its sodium level is comparable to table salt.

To grind the spices, simply remove the cap, turn the bottle upside down and twist the grinder. With each twist, whole spices are cracked, delivering coarsely ground salt and pepper to enhance the flavor of any meal. And each diner can add exactly the amount of spice that they prefer to their meals.

All three grinders, available in attractive glass packing, are found in the spice section of grocery stores nationwide. Their suggested retail price is $1.99 each. For more information, visit www.mccormick.com or call 1-800-MEAL-TIP (1-800-632-5847)

So now, everyone can take a vicarious trip to McCormick's and enjoy the tantalizing aroma of freshly ground spices.