Recipes

Deep red and pleasantly tangy, the hibiscus and orange infusion softens one sugar flower at a time: Canasuc’s La Tour d’Embellie Sugar, a stem-shaped sugar bowl holding 45 blossoms of cane sugar, lets every guest pick their own.

Crushed raspberries blush beneath a pour of steaming white hot chocolate, and at the center of the table stands a tower of little domes: Canasuc’s La Tour Mademoiselle Sugar offers its powdery half-sphere sugars to anyone who likes it sweeter.

Butter foaming in the pan, brioche turning golden, maple syrup waiting on the table: Place des Épices’ organic ground Ceylon cinnamon, more complex and gentler than cassia, fills the kitchen with warmth and finesse.

A sugar butterfly perched on the rim of a cup of lemon verbena waits for its moment: Canasuc’s Evanescence Sugar, hand-carved in France as finely as lace, lets each guest decide when it takes flight into the infusion.

For centuries these small black berries stood in for pepper, and on lamb skewers charred over high heat, Place des Épices’ chaste berry monk’s pepper, grown organically in Morocco, brings a mild heat and a gently herbal aroma.

Forget the spoon: in each cup of lemon ginger infusion, one of Canasuc’s Candy Sticks Sugar, white or brown rock candy made in France from cane sugar, turns slowly and melts away as you sip.

Rosy slices of pork glistening with pan juices, a few pieces of mango, then a last grinding of Place des Épices’ Voatsiperifery black pepper, hand-harvested wild in Madagascar, woody, citrusy and floral, with a fresh, lingering heat.

Ripe strawberries release their juices with a little sugar and basil, then a few turns of the mill change everything: Place des Épices’ organic Tellicherry black pepper, intense and fruity with delicate citrus notes, lingers long and elegant.

Warm potatoes drink in the vinaigrette best, and a generous grinding of Place des Épices’ organic smoked Kerala black pepper, smoked for four hours over pine shavings, gives them a round, gentle smokiness and lovely depth.

Few sauces are as indulgent as this one, where cream meets a crust of crushed Penja black pepper from Place des Épices, an organic pepper from Cameroon, powerful and long, with notes of wood, amber and musk.

Garlic sizzling, shrimp turning pink and a sticky oyster sauce glaze in under fifteen minutes: the organic PGI Kampot black pepper from Place des Épices, mild in heat yet deep and fruity, is what perfumes the wok.

Lift the lid after ten minutes of rest and a floral steam escapes from the pot; cooked in Dammann Frères’ Jasmin Tea Bags, a full-bodied Chinese green tea softened by white jasmine, the rice becomes a fragrant bed for steamed fish.