Nutmeg

Nutmeg refers to the seed or ground spice of several species of the Myristica genus. Myristica fragrans (fragrant nutmeg or true nutmeg) is a dark-leaved, evergreen tree cultivated for two spices derived from its fruit, nutmeg and mace. It is also a commercial source of an essential oil and nutmeg butter.^[1] Other members of the genus, such as M. argentea (Papuan nutmeg) and M. malabarica (Bombay nutmeg), are of limited commercial value.^[1] The California nutmeg (Torreya californica) has a similar fruit but is not closely related to Myristica fragans.^[1]

Common nutmeg

Nutmeg seeds

Nutmeg is the spice made from the seed of the fragrant nutmeg (Myristica fragrans) tree. The spice has a distinctive pungent fragrance and a warm slightly sweet taste; it is used to flavour many kinds of baked goods, confections, puddings, potatoes, meats, sausages, sauces, vegetables, and such beverages as eggnog.

The seeds are dried gradually in the sun over a period of six to eight weeks. During this time the nutmeg shrinks away from its hard seed coat until the kernels rattle in their shells when shaken. The shell is then broken with a wooden club and the nutmegs are picked out. Dried nutmegs are grayish brown ovals with furrowed surfaces.^[2] The nutmegs are roughly egg-shaped, about 20 to 30 mm (0.8 to 1.2 in) long and 15 to 18 mm (0.6 to 0.7 in) wide, and weighing between 5 and 10 g (0.2 and 0.4 oz) dried.

Two other species are used to adulterate the nutmeg spice.^[3]

Mace

Mace

Mace is the spice made from the reddish seed covering (aril) of the nutmeg seed. Its flavour is similar to nutmeg but more delicate; it is used to flavour bakery, meat, fish, vegetables and in preserving and pickling.

In the processing of mace, the crimson-colored aril is removed from the nutmeg seed that it envelops and is flattened out and dried for 10 to 14 days. Its color changes to pale yellow, orange, or tan. Whole dry mace consists of flat pieces—smooth, horny, and brittle—about 40 mm (1.6 in) long.^[4]

Botany and cultivation

Nutmeg tree (Myristica fragrans)

The most important commercial species is the common, true or fragrant nutmeg, Myristica fragrans (Myristicaceae), native to the Banda Islands in the Moluccas (or Spice Islands) of Indonesia.^[5][6] It is also cultivated on Penang Island in Malaysia, in the Caribbean, especially in Grenada, and in Kerala, a state formerly known as Malabar in ancient writings as the hub of spice trading, in southern India. In the 17th-century work Hortus Botanicus Malabaricus, Hendrik van Rheede records that Indians learned the usage of nutmeg from the Indonesians through ancient trade routes.

Nutmeg trees are dioecious plants which are propagated sexually (seeds) and asexually (cuttings or grafting). Sexual propagation yields 50% male seedlings, which are unproductive. As there is no reliable method of determining plant sex before flowering in the sixth to eighth year, and sexual reproduction bears inconsistent yields, grafting is the preferred method of propagation. Epicotyl grafting (a variation of cleft grafting using seedlings), approach grafting, and patch budding have proved successful, with epicotyl grafting being the most widely adopted standard. Air layering is an alternative though not preferred method because of its low (35-40%) success rate.

The first harvest of nutmeg trees takes place seven to nine years after planting, and the trees reach full production after twenty years.

Nutmeg fruit  Red aril and seed within fruit  Aril surrounding nutmeg seed

Culinary uses

Indonesian manisan pala (nutmeg sweets)

Spice

Nutmeg and mace have similar sensory qualities, with nutmeg having a slightly sweeter and mace a more delicate flavour. Mace is often preferred in light dishes for the bright orange, saffron-like hue it imparts. Nutmeg is used for flavouring many dishes, usually in ground or grated form, and is best grated fresh in a nutmeg grater.

In Indonesian cuisine, nutmeg is used in various dishes,^[7] mainly in many spicy soups, such as some variant of soto, konro,^[8] oxtail soup, sup iga (ribs soup), bakso and sup kambing. It is also used in gravy for meat dishes, such as semur beef stew, ribs with tomato, to European derived dishes such as bistik (beef steak), rolade (minced meat roll) and bistik lidah (beef tongue steak).

In Indian cuisine, nutmeg is used in many sweet, as well as savoury, dishes (predominantly in Mughlai cuisine). In Kerala Malabar region, grated nutmeg is used in meat preparations and also sparingly added to desserts for the flavour. It may also be used in small quantities in garam masala. Ground nutmeg is also smoked in India.^[9]

In traditional European cuisine, nutmeg and mace are used especially in potato dishes and in processed meat products; they are also used in soups, sauces, and baked goods. It is also commonly used in rice pudding. In Dutch cuisine, nutmeg is added to vegetables such as Brussels sprouts, cauliflower, and string beans. Nutmeg is a traditional ingredient in mulled cider, mulled wine, and eggnog. In Scotland, mace and nutmeg are usually both ingredients in haggis. In Italian cuisine, nutmeg is used as part of the stuffing for many regional meat-filled dumplings like tortellini, as well as for the traditional meatloaf. Nutmeg is a common spice for pumpkin pie^[10] and in recipes for other winter squashes such as baked acorn squash. In the Caribbean, nutmeg is often used in drinks such as the Bushwacker, Painkiller, and Barbados rum punch. Typically, it is a sprinkle on the top of the drink.

Fruit

The pericarp (fruit covering) is used to make jam, or is finely sliced, cooked with sugar, and crystallised to make a fragrant candy. Sliced nutmeg fruit flesh is made as manisan (sweets), either wet, which is seasoned in sugary syrup liquid, or dry coated with sugar, a dessert called manisan pala in Indonesia. In Penang cuisine, dried, shredded nutmeg rind with sugar coating is used as toppings on the uniquely Penang ais kacang. Nutmeg rind is also blended (creating a fresh, green, tangy taste and white colour juice) or boiled (resulting in a much sweeter and brown juice) to make iced nutmeg juice. In Kerala Malabar region of India, it is used for juice, pickles and chutney.^[9]

Essential oil

The essential oil obtained by steam distillation of ground nutmeg is used widely in the perfumery and pharmaceutical industries. This volatile fraction typically contains 60-80% d-camphene by weight, as well as quantities of d-pinene, limonene, d-borneol, l-terpineol, geraniol, safrol, and myristicin.^[11] In its pure form, myristicin is a toxin, and consumption of excessive amounts of nutmeg can result in myristicin poisoning.^[12] The oil is colourless or light yellow, and smells and tastes of nutmeg. It is used as a natural food flavouring in baked goods, syrups, beverages, and sweets. It is used to replace ground nutmeg, as it leaves no particles in the food. The essential oil is also used in the cosmetic and pharmaceutical industries, such as toothpaste, and as an ingredient in some cough syrups.

After extraction of the essential oil, the remaining seed, containing much less flavour, is called "spent". Spent is often mixed in industrial mills with pure nutmeg to facilitate the milling process, as nutmeg is not easy to mill due to the high percentage of oil in the pure seed. Ground nutmeg with a variable percentage of spent (around 10% w/w) is also less likely to clot.

Nutmeg butter

Nutmeg butter is obtained from the nut by expression. It is semisolid, reddish-brown in colour, and tastes and smells of nutmeg.^[13] About 75% (by weight) of nutmeg butter is trimyristin,^[14] which can be turned into myristic acid, a 14-carbon fatty acid, which can be used as a replacement for cocoa butter, can be mixed with other fats like cottonseed oil or palm oil, and has applications as an industrial lubricant.

History

Map of the Banda Islands

Until the mid-19th century, the small island group of the Banda Islands, which are also known under the name "Spice Islands," was the only location of the production of the spices nutmeg and mace in the world. The Banda Islands are situated in the eastern part of Indonesia, in the province of Maluku. They consist of eleven small volcanic islands, called Neira, Gunung Api, Banda Besar, Rhun, Ai, Hatta, Syahrir, Karaka, Manukan, Nailaka and Batu Kapal, with a total approximate land area of 8,150 hectares.^[15]

Nutmeg is known to have been a prized and costly spice in European medieval cuisine as a flavouring, medicinal, and preservative agent. Saint Theodore the Studite (c. 758 – 826) allowed his monks to sprinkle nutmeg on their pease pudding when required to eat it. In Elizabethan times, because nutmeg was believed to ward off the plague, demand increased and its price skyrocketed.^[8]

Nutmeg was known as a valuable commodity by Muslim sailors from the port of Basra (including the fictional character Sinbad the Sailor in the One Thousand and One Nights). Nutmeg was traded by Arabs during the Middle Ages and sold to the Venetians for high prices, but the traders did not divulge the exact location of their source in the profitable Indian Ocean trade, and no European was able to deduce its location.

The Banda Islands became the scene of the earliest European ventures in Asia, in order to get a grip on the spice trade. In August 1511, Afonso de Albuquerque conquered Malacca, which at the time was the hub of Asian trade, on behalf of the king of Portugal. In November of the same year, after having secured Malacca and learning of Banda's location, Albuquerque sent an expedition of three ships led by his friend António de Abreu to find it. Malay pilots, either recruited or forcibly conscripted, guided them via Java, the Lesser Sundas, and Ambon to the Banda Islands, arriving in early 1512.^[9] The first Europeans to reach the Banda Islands, the expedition remained for about a month, buying and filling their ships with Banda's nutmeg and mace, and with cloves in which Banda had a thriving entrepôt trade.^[10] An early account of Banda is in Suma Oriental, a book written by the Portuguese apothecary Tomé Pires, based in Malacca from 1512 to 1515. Full control of this trade by the Portuguese was not possible, and they remained participants without a foothold in the islands.

In order to obtain a monopoly, on the production and trade of nutmeg, the Dutch East India Company (VOC) waged a bloody battle with the Bandanese in 1621. Historian Willard Hanna estimated that before this struggle the islands were populated by approximately 15,000 people, and only 1,000 were left (the Bandanese were killed, starved while fleeing, exiled or sold as slaves).^[16] The Company constructed a comprehensive nutmeg plantation system on the islands during the 17th century. It included the nutmeg plantations for spice production, several forts for the defense of the spices, and a colonial town for trading and governance. The Dutch were not the only occupants of this region, however. The British skillfully negotiated with the village leaders on the island Rhun to protect them from the Dutch in exchange for a monopoly on their nutmeg. The village leader of Rhun accepted King James I of England as their sovereign, but the English presence on Rhun only lasted until 1624. Control of the Banda Islands continued to be contested until 1667 when, in the Treaty of Breda, the British ceded Rhun to the Dutch in exchange for the island of Manhattan and its city New Amsterdam (later New York) in North America.

As a result of the Dutch interregnum during the Napoleonic Wars, the British took temporary control of the Banda Islands from the Dutch and transplanted nutmeg trees, complete with soil, to Sri Lanka, Penang, Bencoolen, and Singapore.^[17] (There is evidence that the tree existed in Sri Lanka even before this.)^[18] From these locations they were transplanted to their other colonial holdings elsewhere, notably Zanzibar and Grenada. The national flag of Grenada, adopted in 1974, shows a stylised split-open nutmeg fruit. The Dutch retained control of the Spice Islands until World War II.

Connecticut received its nickname ("the Nutmeg State", "Nutmegger") from the claim that some unscrupulous Connecticut traders would whittle "nutmeg" out of wood, creating a "wooden nutmeg", a term which later came to mean any type of fraud.^[19]

World production

World production of nutmeg is estimated to average between 10,000 and 12,000 tonnes per year, with annual world demand estimated at 9,000 tonnes; production of mace is estimated at 1,500 to 2,000 tonnes. Indonesia and Grenada dominate production and exports of both products, with world market shares of 75% and 20%, respectively. Other producers include India, Malaysia (especially Penang, where the trees grow wild within untamed areas), Papua New Guinea, Sri Lanka, and Caribbean islands, such as St. Vincent. The principal import markets are the European Community, the United States, Japan, and India. Singapore and the Netherlands are major re-exporters.

Medicinal properties and research

In the 19th century, nutmeg was used as an abortifacient, which led to numerous recorded cases of nutmeg poisoning.^[20] Although used as a folk treatment for other ailments, nutmeg has no proven medicinal value today.^[20]

One study showed that the compound macelignan isolated from Myristica fragrans may exert antimicrobial activity against Streptococcus mutans,^[21] but this is not a currently used treatment.^[20]

In doses exceeding its use as a seasoning, nutmeg may interact with anxiolytic drugs, produce allergic reactions, cause contact dermatitis, or evoke acute episodes of psychosis.^[20]

Psychoactivity and toxicity

Effects

In low doses, nutmeg produces no noticeable physiological or neurological response, but in large doses, raw nutmeg has psychoactive effects^[22][23] deriving from anticholinergic-like hallucinogenic mechanisms attributed to myristicin and elemicin.^[23][24] Myristicin, a monoamine oxidase inhibitor and psychoactive substance,^[20][23] can induce convulsions, palpitations, nausea, eventual dehydration, and generalized body pain.^[20][22] For these reasons in some countries, whole or ground nutmeg may have import restrictions except in spice mixtures containing less than 20 percent nutmeg.^[25][26]

Nutmeg poisonings occur by accidental consumption in children and by intentional abuse with other drugs in teenagers.^[23] Fatal myristicin poisonings in humans are rare, but three have been reported, including one in an 8-year-old child and another in a 55-year-old adult, with the latter case attributed to a combination with flunitrazepam.^[27]

Nutmeg intoxication can vary greatly from person to person, but is often associated with side effects such as excitedness, anxiety, confusion, headaches, nausea, dizziness, dry mouth, redness in eyes, and amnesia.^[20][23] Nutmeg poisoning is also reported to induce hallucinogenic effects, such as visual distortions and paranoia.^[23] Although rarely reported, nutmeg overdose can result in death, especially if combined with other drugs.^[23] Intoxication takes several hours before maximum effect is experienced.^[20] The effects of nutmeg intoxication may last for several days.^[22][23]

Toxicity during pregnancy

Nutmeg was once considered an abortifacient, but may be safe for culinary use during pregnancy. However, it inhibits prostaglandin production and contains hallucinogens that may affect the fetus if consumed in large quantities.^[28]

Toxicity to dogs

Nutmeg is highly neurotoxic to dogs and causes seizures, tremors, and nervous system disorders which can be fatal. Nutmeg's rich, spicy scent is attractive to dogs which can result in a dog ingesting a lethal amount of this spice. Eggnog and other food preparations which contain nutmeg should not be given to dogs.^[29][30][31]

References

Further reading

• Milton, Giles (1999), Nathaniel's Nutmeg: How One Man's Courage Changed the Course of History
• Burroughs, William S. (1959). Naked Lunch. Paris: Olympia Press. p. 228.
• Gable, R. S. (2006). "The toxicity of recreational drugs". American Scientist. 94: 206–208. doi:10.1511/2006.59.3484. 
• Devereux, P. (1996). Re-Visioning the Earth: A Guide to Opening the Healing Channels Between Mind and Nature. New York: Fireside. pp. 261–262.
• Brierley, J.H. Spices: The Story of Indonesia’s Spice Trade. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994.
• Burnet, Ian. (2011) Spice Islands. NSW (Aus): Rosenberg Publishing.
• Hanna, Willard. 1991. Indonesian Banda: Colonialism and Its Aftermath in the Nutmeg Islands. Moluccas, East Indonesia: Yayasan Warisan dan Budaya Banda Neira

External links

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