The Spice Mogul Story

Spice Mogul was conceived when Malcolm McKay served one of his locally legendary curry recipes at an informal dinner party, and noticed the flavor had gone flat. The usually robust, rich, three dimensional flavors of the classic curry spices seemed to have deflated to the point where the spices were just echoes of their former selves.

Until that point, Malcolm had made his own curry blends using pre-ground spices of indeterminate age. Perplexed, he consulted his friends who were professional chefs or passionate home cooks for some potential solutions. With their advice he decided to try making a batch of curry using whole spices like coriander, cumin and mustard seed grinding them fresh in a spare coffee grinder he had on hand. He re-tested the same curry blend recipe but this time used freshly ground spices. The results were amazing: exotic aromas filled the kitchen and deep rich flavors infused the curry. Yet he found grinding the spices no more complicated or time consuming than grinding coffee beans.

Since then, Malcolm has become a fierce advocate of using freshly ground spices in all his cooking, from rich multi-layered Indian and Thai curries with chicken or prawns or lamb, to simpler stews, chilis and braised dishes from France, Italy or America. Malcolm’s mantra is that we should be paying as much attention to the sourcing and handling of spices as we do to all the other items in our larders.

Spice Mogul aims to give spices their rightful place in the culinary world. The Spice Mogul philosophy means that spices should be not only freshly ground, but organic and sustainably farmed as well. With the launch of Spice Mogul, Malcolm and his partner Steve Orr, strive to deliver a world of rich flavors and aromas from around the world to your family’s dinner table.

The Spice Moguls

Steve Orr

Makes his home in Northern California and has been into food, cooking and eating since he was a child. Good food has been a guiding factor in many of his life decisions including where to study. He chose Paris, naturally.

Since then, Steve has studied cooking in California and France, and has been deeply immersed in Asian cuisine through his extensive travels and business ventures in the Far East. It was there that his appreciation for pungent spices and seasonings took hold, as he experienced meals that had rich dimensions of flavor. Upon returning to America, he tried duplicating the dishes he had enjoyed in Asia, only to find that most of what was commercially available had none of the richness and depth of flavor he had come to love. This was a great motivation to launch Spice Mogul.

Malcolm McKay

Grew up in Europe and the Middle East where freshly ground spices and seasoning formed part of his everyday meals. Malcolm’s early memories include being taken into the back alleys of Aden to eat with the locals, where the cooking exposed him to the exotic flavors of Asia and Africa.

Malcolm’s Spanish heritage meant that his childhood menus were also filled with richly flavored dishes from southern Spain where he went on school holidays to be with his relatives in Andalusia. In addition, Malcolm spent a good deal of time during his university career in Paris, exploring that city’s ethnic enclaves fragrant with the cooking of Morocco and Tunisia and other French colonial outposts around the world.