Nutmeg

For other uses, see Nutmeg (disambiguation).

Nutmeg
Myristica fragrans
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Plantae
(unranked):	Angiosperms
(unranked):	Magnoliids
Order:	Magnoliales
Family:	Myristicaceae
Genus:	Myristica Gronov.
Species
See text

The nutmeg tree is any of several species of trees in genus Myristica. The most important commercial species is Myristica fragrans, an evergreen tree indigenous to the Banda Islands in the Moluccas of Indonesia, or Spice Islands. The nutmeg tree is important for two spices derived from the fruit, nutmeg and mace.

Nutmeg is the actual seed of the tree, roughly egg-shaped and about 20 to 30 mm (0.8 to 1 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, while mace is the dried "lacy" reddish covering or aril of the seed. The first harvest of nutmeg trees takes place 7–9 years after planting, and the trees reach full production after 20 years. Nutmeg is usually used in powdered form. This is the only tropical fruit that is the source of two different spices.

Several other commercial products are also produced from the trees, including essential oils, extracted oleoresins, and nutmeg butter (see below).

The outer surface of the nutmeg bruises very easily.

The common or fragrant nutmeg, Myristica fragrans, native to the Banda Islands of Indonesia, is also grown in Penang Island in Malaysia and the Caribbean, especially in Grenada. It also grows in Kerala, a state in the southern India. Other species of nutmeg include Papuan nutmeg M. argentea from New Guinea, and Bombay nutmeg M. malabarica from India, called jaiphal in Hindi; both are used as adulterants of M. fragrans products.

Botany and cultivation

Myristica fragrans tree in Goa, India.

Nutmegs in a tree, Kerala, India

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

List sources :

Culinary uses

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 always used in ground or grated form, and is best grated fresh (see nutmeg grater).

Nutmeg is used for flavouring many dishes in all countries where it is available.

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 or, as it is called in Penang Hokkien, "lau hau peng".

In Indian cuisine, nutmeg is used in many sweet as well as savoury dishes (predominantly in Mughlai cuisine). It is known as jaiphal in most parts of India, In Kannada, nutmeg is called 'Jaayi-kaayi/Jaaipatre' "jathikai" in tamil and as jatipatri(ജാതിപത്രി) and jathi (ജാതിക്കായ) seed in Kerala. In Telugu, nutmeg is called jaaji kaaya (జాజి కాయ) and mace is called jaapathri (జాపత్రి). It is also added in small quantities as a medicine for infants (janma ghutti) It may also be used in small quantities in garam masala. Ground nutmeg is also smoked in India.

In Middle Eastern cuisine, ground nutmeg is often used as a spice for savoury dishes. In Arabic, nutmeg is called jawzat at-tiyb (جوزة الطيب).

In Greece and Cyprus, nutmeg is called μοσχοκάρυδο (moschokarydo) (Greek: "musky nut") and is used in cooking and savoury dishes.

In originally 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. 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.

Japanese varieties of curry powder include nutmeg as an ingredient.

In the Caribbean, nutmeg is often used in drinks such as the Bushwacker, Painkiller, and Barbados rum punch. Typically it is just a sprinkle on the top of the drink.

The pericarp (fruit/pod) is used in Grenada to make a jam called morne delice. In Indonesia, the fruit is also made into jam, called selei buah pala, or is finely sliced, cooked with sugar, and crystallised to make a fragrant candy called manisan pala (nutmeg sweets).

Essential oils

Nutmeg seeds showing "veins"

The essential oil is obtained by steam distillation of ground nutmeg, and 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. The oil is colourless or light yellow, and smells and tastes of nutmeg. It contains numerous components of interest to the oleochemical industry, and 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, for instance, in toothpaste, and as a major ingredient in some cough syrups. In traditional medicine, nutmeg and nutmeg oil were used for disorders related to the nervous and digestive systems. Nutmeg has been known to poison some small animals for over consumption.

Nutmeg butter

Nutmeg butter is obtained from the nut by expression. It is semi-solid, reddish brown in colour, and tastes and smells of nutmeg. Approximately 75% (by weight) of nutmeg butter is trimyristin, 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

Mace (red) within nutmeg fruit

It 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 ( ca. 758 – ca. 826) allowed his monks to sprinkle nutmeg on their pease pudding when required to eat it. In Elizabethan times, it was believed nutmeg could ward off the plague, so nutmeg was very popular.

The small Banda Islands were the world's only source of nutmeg and mace. Nutmeg was traded by Arabs during the Middle Ages and sold to the Venetians for very 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 their 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 that year, after having secured Malacca and learning of the Bandas' location, Albuquerque sent an expedition of three ships led by his friend António de Abreu to find them. Malay pilots, either recruited or forcibly conscripted, guided them via Java, the Lesser Sundas and Ambon to Banda, 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 British and Dutch engaged in prolonged struggles to gain control of Run Island, then the only source of nutmeg. At the end of the Second Anglo-Dutch War, the Dutch gained control of Run, while Britain controlled New Amsterdam (New York) in North America.

The Dutch managed to establish control over the Banda Islands after an extended military campaign that culminated in the massacre or expulsion of most of the islands' inhabitants 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 extirpate nutmeg trees planted elsewhere.

As a result of the Dutch interregnum during the Napoleonic Wars, the English took temporary control of the Banda Islands from the Dutch and transplanted nutmeg trees to their own colonial holdings elsewhere, notably Zanzibar and Grenada. The national flag of Grenada, adopted in 1974, shows a stylised split-open nutmeg fruit.

Connecticut gets 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 came to mean any fraud).

World production

File:Nutmeg.JPG

Commercial jar of mace

World production of nutmeg is estimated to average between 10,000 and 12,000 tonnes (9,800 and 12,000 long tons) per year, with annual world demand estimated at 9,000 tonnes (8,900 long tons); production of mace is estimated at 1,500 to 2,000 tonnes (1,500 to 2,000 long tons). 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 are native 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.

At one time, nutmeg was one of the most valuable spices. It has been said that in England, several hundred years ago, a few nutmegs could be sold for enough money to enable financial independence for life.

Medical research

One study has shown that the compound macelignan isolated from Myristica fragrans (Myristicaceae) may exert antimicrobial activity against Streptococus mutans, but this is not a currently used treatment.

The medical condition known as Nutmeg Liver is named because the congested lobes of the liver look like nutmeg veins. [1]

Psychoactivity and toxicity

Effects

In low doses, nutmeg produces no noticeable physiological or neurological response, but large doses cause symptoms and harm.

Nutmeg contains myristicin, a weak monoamine oxidase inhibitor. Myristicin poisoning can induce convulsions, palpitations, nausea, eventual dehydration, and generalized body pain. It is also reputed to be a strong deliriant.

Fatal myristicin poisonings in humans are very rare, but two have been reported, in an 8-year-old child and a 55-year-old adult, the latter case attributed to a combination with flunitrazepam.

It should also be noted that the recreational properties of nutmeg can take about four hours to take effect, and large enough doses have been reported to cause severe tiredness, uncontrollable and prolonged sleep coupled with dehydration. The effects have been known to last longer than 72 hours, depending on the size of the dose.

Myristicin poisoning is potentially deadly to some pets and livestock, and may be caused by culinary quantities of nutmeg harmless to humans. For this reason, for example, it is recommended not to feed eggnog to dogs.

History of use

Journalist Jack Shafer has written of nutmeg's long history as a psychoactive substance:

"Can you reach an altered state of consciousness by eating, snorting, or smoking from a tin of nutmeg? You betcha. The medical literature ('Nutmeg Intoxication,' New England Journal of Medicine, July 4, 1963; 'Nutmeg as a Narcotic,' Angewandte Chemie International Edition, June 1971) has long respected the psychoactive powers of this compound.

Peter Stafford's Psychedelics Encyclopedia uncovers an 1883 report from Mumbai noting that 'the Hindus of West India take [nutmeg] as an intoxicant.' Stafford continues, 'Nutmeg has been used for centuries as a snuff in rural eastern Indonesia; in India, the same practice appears, but often the ground seed is first mixed with betel and other kinds of snuff.' In 1829, a Czech physiologist named Jan Evangelista Purkinje washed down three ground nutmegs with a glass of wine and experienced headaches, nausea, euphoria, and hallucinations that lasted several days, which remain a good description of today's average nutmeg binge. One anecdotal report: A drug-savvy friend of mine compares his one nutmeg high to being keelhauled by a freight train on a transcontinental run. He didn't like it, but the substance has its enthusiasts.

Harvard ethnobotanist Richard Evans Schultes and chemist Albert Hofmann (father of LSD) wrote of nutmeg's ubiquity in Western culture in their 1980 book The Botany and Chemistry of Hallucinogens. 'Confirmed reports of its use by students, prisoners, sailors, alcoholics, marijuana smokers, and other deprived of their preferred drugs are many and clear. Especially frequent is the taking of nutmeg in prisons, notwithstanding the usual denials by prison officials.' (Malcolm X speaks of getting high on nutmeg 'and the other semi-drugs' while serving time in prison in The Autobiography of Malcolm X.)

It has been used as medicine since at least the seventh century and was employed as an abortifacient at the end of the 19th century, which resulted in numerous cases of nutmeg poisoning, according to medical journals. Although used as a folk treatment for other ailments, nutmeg has no proven medicinal value today.

According to the Angewandte Chemie International Edition article, nutmeg became popular among young people, bohemians, and prisoners in the post-World War II period, 'and this use was mainly, if not exclusively, confined to the USA.' A 1966 New York Times piece (subscription required) named it along with morning glory seeds, diet aids, cleaning fluids, cough medicine, and other substances as alternative highs on college campuses."

Nutmeg is also banned in Saudi Arabia because of its contents usage.

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.

See also

• Run (island): Seventeenth-century British-Dutch rivalry for a source of nutmegs

References

• Shulgin, A. T., Sargent, T. W., & Naranjo, C. (1967). Chemistry and psychopharmacology of nutmeg and of several related phenylisopropylamines. United States Public Health Service Publication 1645: 202–214.
• Gable, R. S. (2006). The toxicity of recreational drugs. American Scientist 94: 206–208.
• Devereux, P. (1996). Re-Visioning the Earth: A Guide to Opening the Healing Channels Between Mind and Nature. New York: Fireside. pp. 261–262.
• Milton, Giles (1999), Nathaniel's Nutmeg: How One Man's Courage Changed the Course of History
• Burroughs, W. S. (1959). Naked Lunch. Paris: Olympia Press. p. 228.
• Erowid Nutmeg Information

External links

• Do You Know About the Narcotic Effects of Nutmeg?
• Antifungal Properties of Nutmeg Essential oil
• Caldecott, Todd (2006). Ayurveda: The Divine Science of Life. Elsevier/Mosby. ISBN 0723434107. Contains a detailed monograph on Myristica fragrans (Nutmeg; Jatiphala) as well as a discussion of health benefits and usage in clinical practice. Available online at http://www.toddcaldecott.com/index.php/herbs/learning-herbs/353-jatiphala