We live in an age where everything is available, and instantly. Part of me hates this. I foresee a future in which half the world will be packing and delivering items – miso, the latest trainers, ‘miracle’ skin cream – to the other half. But I won’t pretend I’m not glad that I can get hold of specific ingredients by filling a virtual shopping basket. 

I try not to use Amazon because they can pack two small packs of coffee capsules in a box that would hold a football, instead I have a list of dependable companies who sell unusual ingredients and spices from all over the world. The excellent Souschef and Spice Mountain stock stuff I haven’t even heard of. 

I grew up in the sticks in the 1970s and ‘80s. Getting spices to cook Indian food required a trip to Belfast, and even there the pickings could be slim. When I asked my local greengrocer for avocados, he thought they were a variety of pear and suggested using Conference instead. 

When I moved to London, I still had to cross town for pomegranate molasses. I used to love shopping for ingredients, though. With a travel card I could go all over the city, Chinatown for southeast Asian ingredients, the Edgeware Road for Middle Eastern stuff, Green Lanes for Turkish staples. London was one city but had many worlds within it. I came to know and love it by shopping for unusual – to me – foods. Now supermarkets do their own brand of tamarind paste, bulgur wheat and rice vinegar. The changes that have taken place in the last twenty years are staggering. 

Not everyone is happy with this. I know from comments on my pieces that some don’t want their cupboards to be full of unfamiliar things – how will they use these after they’ve made one dish with them? – and many don’t want to shop for them either. They want to get supper on the table with a minimum of fuss. 

The thing is, desiring the unusual isn’t new, and many once ‘unusual’ ingredients have, over time, become embedded in British cooking. If we took spices, dried fruit, nuts and citrus fruits out of the picture our food wouldn’t even look British. We wouldn’t have fruit cake, Sussex Pond pudding or marmalade, never mind tea. In fact, if we stopped having access to pasta – which hasn’t always been a staple here – I don’t know what British parents would feed their children.  

My life would be poorer if I hadn’t discovered cumin – a spice with an earthy, sweaty smell which I love – or the Korean paste, gochujang. Mix a slick of this with mayonnaise and stuff it into a bun with crisp vegetables and griddled chicken. Nirvana. Though I fear a global food culture where ingredients from different countries are used indiscriminately – no doubt someone will soon produce a recipe which contains both coconut milk and za-atar – most of us are curious, we want to taste the new and the unfamiliar. 

I remember when I first tasted soy sauce. I was thirteen and my friend Audrey persuaded me to go to a Chinese restaurant in the seaside town nearby. The menu was full of unknowns, but Audrey decided we should have tomato soup – something familiar – followed by chicken fried rice – something unfamiliar. I fell for the dark, salty, almost beefy condiment in a bottle with a little red hat and have been using soy sauce ever since. 

Having a cupboard full of distinctive flavours is like having a paint box. You can end up with loads of different results – some that you couldn’t even have imagined – just by using them with plain old chicken thighs or half a dozen eggs. An open mind leads to deliciousness. 

Best recipes to try with store cupboard ingredients

Fish counters in supermarkets are, sadly, disappearing, but if you can’t source whole fish near you, there are plenty of good suppliers online these days. This celebratory dish is the perfect excuse to visit a specialist.