History----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Nutmeg is known to have been a prized and costly spice in European medieval cuisine as a flavoring, medicinal, and preservative agent. Saint Theodore the Studite (ca. 758 – ca. 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.
Until the mid-19th century the small island of Banda (known to early English adventurers as "Run", although it is a different island, —both are now part of the Banda Islands), was the world's only source of nutmeg and mace. 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.
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 Run, arriving in early 1512. The first Europeans to reach the Bandas, the expedition remained in Banda for about a month, purchasing and filling their ships with Banda's nutmeg and mace, and with cloves in which Banda had a thriving entrepôt trade. The first written accounts of Banda are 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 themselves.
The trade in nutmeg later became dominated by the Dutch in the 17th century. The English and Dutch, through their competing East India and Dutch East India Companies, engaged in prolonged struggles to gain control of Run Island. At the end of the Second Anglo-Dutch War, the Dutch gained control of Run, while England controlled New Amsterdam (New York) in North America.
The Dutch waged a bloody war, including the massacre and enslavement of the inhabitants of the island of Banda, just to control nutmeg production in the East Indies in 1621. Thereafter, the Banda Islands were run as a series of plantation estates, with the Dutch mounting annual expeditions in local war-vessels to find and destroy any nutmeg trees planted elsewhere.
In 1760, the price of nutmeg in London was 85 to 90 shillings per pound, a price kept artificially high by the Dutch voluntarily burning warehouses full of nutmegs in Amsterdam.
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. However, there is evidence that the tree existed in Sri Lanka prior to this. Thence 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 however continued to hold control of the spice islands until World War II.
Connecticut received its nickname ("the Nutmeg State", "Nutmegger") from the legend 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.
Here are 7 Cool Facts About Nutmeg---------------------------------------------------------------------
1. In very large quantities nutmeg has a hallucinogenic effect. It is a highly aromatic spice with a woody bittersweet flavor and a rich warm aroma.
2. The nutmeg tree is native to the Banda Islands of Indonesia and it produces two different spices: Nutmeg and Mace.
3. Whole nutmeg keeps almost indefinitely stored in airtight containers, but ground nutmeg loses its flavor very quick.
4. Banda nutmeg and mace are superior to the West Indian ones.
5. Mace is much more costly than nutmeg because its yield is about ten times less that of nutmeg.
6. Nutmeg goes well with both sweet and savory dishes: desserts, fruit, spinach, cheese fillings, veal, pork, pumpkin, eggs, cabbage.
7. Always purchase whole nutmeg and grate it as needed.
Summary--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Common name---Nutmeg (Myristica fragrans)
Species name---Myristica fragrans
Genus name---Myristica
Family name---Myristicaceae
Symptoms---psychoactive
Treatments---No treatment specifically, but can easily be avoided if cooked correctly and eaten within moderation.
Toxic parts---Seed
Location of plant---West Indian origins.
Interesting facts---See above under 7 interesting facts. Nutmeg is also seen on television as being associated with Christmas and holidays, because it is great.
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