And like all kids, desserts were my favorite — especially those flavored with two distinctive spices that come from the nutmeg tree, which has the beautiful scientific name, Myristica fragrans.
Nutmeg is native to the Moluccas or Spice Island of Indonesia. The trees — which can grow up to 70 feet tall and bear fruit for half a century — are now cultivated all over the tropics.
The nutmeg spice comes from the seed inside the tree’s apricot-like fruit. When the seeds dry, they shrink away from their shells, and are then either ground up and bottled or sold whole.
Nutmeg contains the two compounds, pinene and camphene, which give a nutty richness to many baked goods, curries and puddings. And even though these seeds only grow in the tropics, I love to grate a dash of nutmeg on my winter holiday eggnog.
But there can be too much of a good spice! If you consume nutmeg in large amounts — like three entire nutmeg seeds — you might experience psychoactive effects and hallucinations.
This very same tree — and the very same fruits — also gives us the spice mace, which comes from the red, lacy tissue or aril that surrounds the nutmeg seed. That material — called a "blade" of mace” — is processed into a delicate yellow-orange powder to flavor meats, pies and pickles. Mace, which has no relationship to the defensive pepper spray, tastes like a combination of citrus, cinnamon and black pepper.
So next time you cook foods that rely on the pungent flavors of nutmeg and mace, think about the one tree that gives us both — the beautifully named Myristica fragrans.
