🌶️A beginner’s guide to spice 🌶️ Spices are magical. The lightest dusting of them can transform a dish, banishing blandness and evoking far-flung places and long-buried memories. Supermarket blends are fine, but your dishes deserve better. Here are the London spice sellers who are peddling the freshest, zingiest, most unusual flavours in town: ​ ​🔴Daniel Amadi, Pimento Hill, Borough Market ‘In Ghana we have a notion that spice is good for you because it gives you energy sexually: it makes the blood pump through your veins. I grew up eating spicy food, but I tasted new flavours when I started working at Pimento Hill, which sells Caribbean sauces and chutneys.’ ​ 🔴Magali Russie, Spice Mountain, Borough Market ‘I wasn’t a cook before I started Spice Mountain, now I’ve got Michelin-starred chefs asking me for advice. I guess I’m like a football manager: I can’t play the game myself, but I can tell other people what should go where. I source spices from small plantations all over the world, and we roast, grind and blend them ourselves. My favourites are nigella seeds and aleppo pepper.’ ​ ​🔴Arttu Jäppinen, The Spice Shop, Notting Hill ‘I grew up in a small town in Finland where it was fairly hard to find spices. But my dad was very curious about other cuisines, and I learnt to cook with him: he’d mix up his own recipes from whatever ingredients he could find. My favourite spice is Hungarian paprika, it’s got a sweetness which is so lovely in meaty stews.’ 🔴Saja Shaheen, Nour Cash & Carry, Brixton Market ‘My family is from Iran and Iraq: traditionally, we use lots of tumeric, cumin, rose petals and saffron in our cooking. But during our 20 years selling spices we’ve built relationships with local customers and they’ve shared their African and Caribbean recipes with us. Now, we make things like jollof rice at home and use Jamaican spice blends.’ ​ ​[📸: @jesshand28] ​[🎨:@bryanmayesdotcom] ​[✒️ : Alice Savile]