I've been seeing a bunch of "Moroccan spice" recipes lately. If you aren't up on what that is, "Moroccan spice" refers to ras al-hanout, a spice mixture with no set recipe or even list of ingredients, but which, like curry or chile powder, tends to reflect the cuisine of the culture, and also like curry or chile powder, American spice vendors seem to have developed a more-or-less standard recipe.
I like all the spices that are in typical American ras al-hanout recipes, but I have access to two additional spices which are commonly used in Moroccan cuisine, but aren't used in any American recipe I can find: grains-of-paradise and sumac. So for Christmas, I decided I'm having lamb, and I decided that I'd improvise and make my own ras al-hanout, including those two ingredients.
Thought I had both at home, bought the other spices that I was out of or low on when I was out, went to whip up the mixture, and discovered that either I'm out of sumac or it's ended up in some out-of-the-way cranny where I can't find it. Either way, I needed more sumac and drove to Central Market. My only reason for driving to Central Market on the day before Christmas Eve was to get more sumac and ... they're out.
My first thought was that it must not just me, there must be a trend of "Moroccan spice" recipes and other people had the same idea, especially given that I noticed they also had a "sorry, we're out" sign on their generic ras al-hanout mixture too.
Except... there would have had to be enough people who saw such videos, had the same idea I did, and knew that sumac was commonly used in Moroccan cuisine and available at Central Market. Are there enough of those to make them sell out of it?