I didn’t set out to write a book, and I think that’s probably the best place to start.
When Wiley Publishing first got in touch and asked if I’d be interested in writing one for their long-established Dummies series, I remember feeling genuinely surprised. I’ve spent years working with spices, building Spice Kitchen with my mum, and sharing what we do with customers, but being approached as someone who could write a book about it made me pause for a moment. I think there was a part of me that felt quite humbled by it, if I’m honest. It made me wonder what I could really add, and whether I had something useful to say that hadn’t already been said.
I sat with it for a while before saying yes, because I didn’t want to create just another book about spices. There are so many brilliant ones out there already, and I wasn’t interested in adding to the noise unless it felt meaningful. What I kept coming back to was something much simpler, which is that the way I’d grown up with spices felt very different to how a lot of people experience them now.
For me, spices have always been completely ordinary. I grew up watching my mum cook, and spices were just part of how food was made to taste good. There was no sense that they were complicated or that you needed to understand them on a technical level. They were used instinctively, in the same way most people might reach for salt or black pepper. They were just there, part of everyday life, part of the rhythm of cooking.
Over the years, the more I spoke to people, the more I realised that this isn’t how it feels for everyone (something that should perhaps have been obvious, but wasn’t!). Spices can feel intimidating, or a bit mysterious, or like something you need to get right before you even begin. People often tell me they’ve got cupboards full of spices but don’t really know what to do with them, or they worry about using the wrong combination and getting it wrong. And I completely understand that, because if you didn’t grow up around it, there’s no obvious starting point.
That gap, between how simple it can be and how complicated it sometimes feels, is really why the Essential Spices for Dummies book exists, and why I said ‘yes’ to the invitation.
I wanted to create something that makes spices feel more accessible, not more technical. Something that gives people the confidence to use what they already have, rather than feeling like they need to go out and learn everything from scratch. At its heart, the book is about helping people cook with a bit more ease and a bit less second guessing.
One of the biggest ways I’ve always done that in my own cooking is through spice blends. At home, we’re not pulling together lots of individual spices every time we cook. We’re using blends that have already been developed, often over generations, so they just work. It takes away a lot of the pressure, because you’re not starting from zero each time, you’re building on something that’s already been thought through.
That’s something I really wanted to bring into the book, because I think blends are one of the simplest ways to get great flavour into food without making things complicated. You don’t need to understand every single spice in isolation, and you don’t need to follow long, detailed processes. You can just start cooking, taste as you go, and build your confidence from there.
While I was writing, I was increasingly aware of where my own understanding of spices has come from. So much of it traces back to my mum, and through her to the generations before her. It’s knowledge that hasn’t been learned in a formal way, but passed down through everyday cooking, through repetition, through instinct. When I really stopped to think about it, I realised how privileged I am to have grown up around that, and how important it felt to share it in a way that stays true to that simplicity.
I never wanted the book to feel like it was trying to position me as an expert in the traditional sense. If anything, I wanted it to feel like an open door. Something that says, you can do this, and it doesn’t have to be perfect. Cooking with spices doesn’t need to be complicated or time consuming, and it definitely shouldn’t feel intimidating.
If someone reads the book and feels more confident opening their cupboard and using what’s already there, that’s enough. If it helps them enjoy cooking a bit more, or feel less pressure to get everything exactly right, then it’s done its job.
For me, this was never really about writing a book in the traditional sense. It was about sharing a way of cooking that has always felt natural to me, and hopefully making that feel a bit more natural for other people too.
Author Bio
Sanjay Aggarwal is the co-founder of Spice Kitchen, a family-run business he started with his mum, Shashi, at their kitchen table on Christmas Day in 2012. What began as a small idea to share her home cooking and spice knowledge has grown into a brand now stocked in hundreds of retailers across the UK, including John Lewis and Selfridges.
Sanjay is passionate about making cooking with spices feel simple, practical and enjoyable. Drawing on decades of family knowledge passed down through generations, his work focuses on helping people build confidence in the kitchen without overcomplicating the process. Essential Spices for Dummies is his first book.