The Olivia Pope of Home Cooking: Atlanta Spicemaster Helps Cooks Discover Life Beyond Lawry’s
Season—it’s a simple yet versatile word that can encompass everything from the month on the calendar to how many gray hairs are on your head. Yet for most ethnic foodies, one definition reigns supreme: It’s that mysterious yet irresistible touch of flavor that makes a dish mouthwatering.
Generations of Black cooks have perfected an almost preternatural talent for using a pinch of this and a dash of that to transform the simple into the sublime, earning a cultural badge of honor if you know how to make a roast sing, or a scarlet letter if your dish evokes the dubious cookout question, “Who made this potato salad?”
But with demands on modern people’s time only increasing, the old ways of learning to “put your foot in it”—years studying at the elbow of a knowing grandmother or aunt—don’t always come as easily.
Enter Todd “The Seasoner” McKinley, a flavor fixer who’s lending his own talent creating savory spice blends to help home cooks upgrade meals one pork chop at a time. McKinley runs Southern Roots Spice Shop, a Chamblee gem offering over 300 spices and blends, as well as an in-store coffee shop serving premium coffees and teas.
“I feel like my job is potentially twofold—one is to provide a great array of spices for spice lovers. My other job is to really educate my own Black community around utilizing other spices beyond what we grew up with.”
The shop’s signature offering is a unique spice system McKinley thinks can make even the most confused chef level up. It breaks spices into three tiers - Level 1 for individual bold spices like garlic powder or oregano, Level 2 for roasted, toasted, or custom blends, and Level 3 for international flavors. The result, he says, is a simple way for cooks to get an idea of how a seasoning will affect their food.
“My goal is never to get people to cook more,” he says. “What I’m trying to do is [say] anything you cook, elevate it!”
McKinley opened the shop with his husband Lynn Brewington in March. It’s both business and pleasure for McKinley, offering him a new path after Covid-19 nixed his dream job, and letting him help fellow foodies discover life after lemon pepper.
“I feel like my job is potentially twofold—one is to provide a great array of spices for spice lovers,” he says. “My other job is to really educate my own Black community around utilizing other spices beyond what we grew up with.”
An array of seasonings from Southern Roots Spice Shop
A History of Flavor
With everything from sea salt to star anise readily available on our grocery shelves, it's hard to imagine that seasonings and spices used to be a deadly serious business. In fact, flavorings like nutmeg, cloves, and even simple sugar were once hot commodities with the power to shape entire communities in ways that still resonate today.
Historians estimate ancient Egyptians were using spices as long ago as 3500 BC; by the Middle Ages, when lack of refrigeration meant food spoiled rapidly, spices were valued as highly as gold for their ability to mask rancid flavors.
Seasonings came to have a special resonance among Blacks in America. Enslaved Africans typically received just a few poor cuts of meat to eat each week. That left them looking to ingenious mixtures of ingredients like vinegar and pepper to transform the meat. By the early 19th-century slave creations like pepper pot had become highly demanded delicacies, sold by Black vendors on city streets.
In the 1960s, the Black Power movement had prompted the rise of the term soul food, a term for foods like homemade macaroni and cheese, cornbread, and fried fish that still sticks.
Let Me Upgrade You
While ethnic cooking has continued to evolve, its seasonings haven’t quite kept up. In fact, when McKinley looks in the average Black cook’s cupboards, he expects to see three main players: onion powder, garlic powder, and seasoning salt. It’s a throwback to some of the simple ingredients their ancestors may have depended on.
“Growing up, my mom’s spice rack was the same,” he says. “Expansion is important, so I’m always looking to help my community look at other spices beyond garlic, onion, and a few herbs - what else can we do with cloves rather than throw them on a ham?”
Getting cooks beyond the trio is easier said than done, especially when reputations can be built and destroyed by a pan of macaroni and cheese.
“Growing up, my mom’s spice rack was the same. Expansion is important, so I’m always looking to help my community look at other spices beyond garlic, onion, and a few herbs - what else can we do with cloves rather than throw them on a ham?”
McKinley warms them up with quirky blend names that speak directly to the Black American experience. There’s his “Famous Green Blend” - a mixture specially created just for the collard and turnip leafs ubiquitously referred to as “greens”. Meanwhile, his salt-free “Ain’t No Pressure” blend uses citrus to add a spark while hearkening to many Black folks’ concerns over their blood pressure.
Often, McKinley says people simply play it safe by using what they’ve seen work for their grandmothers. In communities of color, that often means a hard no on exotic spices like cumin or saffron.
To expand their horizons, McKinley offers seasoning samples, as well as private tasting events called potlucks. Guests get samples of three proteins, 40 spices, and two hours to mix, season, and taste. During the two-hour event, McKinley helps guests navigate the flavors— key, he says, to getting them to think bigger when it comes to seasoning.
“Getting Black folks or anyone to taste something, it opens them up,” he says. “If I can put it in your mouth, you’re gonna buy it!”
The Accidental Entrepreneur
While McKinley loved experimenting with composition as a child—his favorite toys included a chemistry set—being a spice god wasn’t his original career goal.
Instead, he spent decades working in the medical sales arena. He was overseeing North American sales for a major biotech lab and felt comfortable enough to encourage husband Lynn to pursue his dream of starting a house-flipping business.
“Then I lost my job in March 2020,” he says, adding the couple worried one of them should go back to a traditional job, but ultimately decided it was time to try something new.
These days the couple can often be found in the shop, sporting aprons and educating customers on things like the powers and pitfalls of salt.
It isn’t without its challenges, and even “The Seasoner” has his bad days. For instance, one recent blend didn’t turn out as planned.
“I put way too much heat in it,” McKinley says with a chuckle. “No one could eat it but me.”
Nonetheless, the husband-and-husband team embraces the difficulties as opportunities in disguise—much like McKinley losing his job.
“We really felt like we both were called to do what we’re doing,” he says.
Dionne Walker-Bing is an Atlanta-based reporter with over a decade of experience. Walker offers a distinct voice and unique skill for capturing the stories of diverse communities, perfected while writing for The Associated Press, The Capital-Gazette (Annapolis), and a variety of other daily publications throughout the Southeast. When she’s not writing features, Walker is busy traveling, crafting, or perfecting her vinyasa yoga skills.