Spice and Seasoning Sprinkling

Over the 40 years that I’ve been cooking, I’ve developed a feel for certain things, like the way to season or spice certain dishes without measuring.  For example, when I cook carne picada con papas (that’s ground beef with potatoes), I know that a light sprinkling of comino (cumin) over the entire surface of the food in the skillet will render just the right taste for me.  As well, I add ground cinnamon to my ground coffee in the basket before I brew the pot.  It’s about as much as I sprinkle on a piece of buttered bread to make the second layer of toppings for cinnamon toast, the third being granulated sugar.

Having made the three items mentioned above countless times in my adult life, the sprinkling process, in many cases, has become second nature.  It goes something like this:

• grab the bottle of spice;
• double check the label (very important step unless you want to add cinnamon instead of cumin to the carne picada; we ate it but it wasn’t very good);
• unscrew the outer cap;
• sprinkle through the sprinkle cap (the plastic cap underneath the outer cap with the holes to allow the spice to be sprinkled.)

So, to sum up my technique—grab, check, unscrew, and sprinkle.  However, something has happened in the world of packaging seasonings and spices to force a change in that technique.  The manufacturers of the bottles used by my favorite seasoning/spice companies have redesigned the bottle caps. 

Please understand I have no problem with the fact that the cap has been redesigned.  Now the outer cap and the sprinkle cap are one with the outer cap being attached by a hinge to the sprinkle cap.  So, now the technique becomes grab, check, flip and sprinkle.  Actually, it’s a timesaver for the efficiency-minded cook because a flip of the thumb gives you access to the sprinkle step and you could conceivably grab, check, flip and sprinkle with just one hand.  Also, for the record, I don’t have much trouble with change.  I find it challenging.  Sort of keeps me on my toes.

As I said above, I’m all for the redesign but I’m curious.  I know enough about corporate America to know that nothing gets changed without a series of meetings where every conceivable variation of the concept is discussed.  I’m curious to know something about those cap redesign meetings.  I'm curious to know if they discussed what would happen if my technique of grab, check, unscrew and sprinkle was applied to their bottles with the redesigned caps.  I'm curious to know if they laughed because it could be pretty funny for someone to dump a whole bottle of oregano into the spaghetti sauce.  Thankfully, I realized what was happening just before I did it.