Kathy Cismowski, age 10, of Duluth, Minnesota, for her question:
Where does nutmeg come from?
Nutmeg, of course, adds that just right flavor to eggnogs and custard pies. It was introduced to the western world when sailing ships ventured around the globe and began trading with the East Indies. These far eastern tropical isles were known as the Spice Islands and nutmeg was one of their most popular products.
Nowadays, nutmeg is usually packaged for sale as a fine, rusty brown powder. In pioneer days, cooks grated their own powder from hard, dark brown nutmeg kernels about the size and shape of walnuts. In either case, the powder has a fragrant whiff and its own special spicy flavor. In the right amount in the right dish, it tastes somewhat like a blend of assorted garden herbs with a hint of cloves, beechnuts and sunflower seeds. However, nothing else in the world has exactly the same, unforgettable flavor. Nutmeg adds the perfect finish to custardy egg dishes and a pinch of the brown powder helps to harmonize the assorted ingredients in spicy cakes.
It was discovered when Portuguese sailing ships put into the East Indies, alias the Spice Islands and no wonder the cooks of Europe went wild about it. Enormous prices were paid for the Spice Island treasures. Those expensive cargoes of nutmegs were shipped from the Molucca Islands where most of the world's best nutmegs still grow. The East Indies are in the wide ocean between northern Australia and the trailing Malay peninsula. The Moluccas, the famous nutmeg isles, are strewn across the equator between the larger islands of Celebes and New Guinea.
Most of the Moluccas are planted with evergreen nutmeg trees. They grow 70 feet high, shaded by even higher tropical trees. At the right season, pale yellow blossoms that look and smell like lilies of the valley dangle on the green gray boughs. Later the boughs are decked with fruits that look like golden pears. Soon the pulpy flesh withers and becomes rather like candied fruit. But the secret nutmeg flavor is not yet ready for harvesting. At last the fruit bursts open, showing that the walnut sized nuts inside are wrapped in bright red, paper thin skins. This red membrane becomes rich, dark mace with a spicy flavor somewhat, though not exactly, like cloves.
The nutmegs are thin shelled nuts inside the papery mace and the withered pulp of the fruit. The nut seeds are separated and dried over very gentle heat, perhaps for a month. Then their thin shells are cracked open. The hard, dark brown kernels inside are the spicy nutmegs. A nutmeg tree is nine years old before, it bears and it may bear 2,000 spicy nutmegs each season for another 60 years. The Moluccas still provide bumper crops for the world. But nutmeg trees now grow also in India and Ceylon, in the West Indies and tropical regions of Brazil.
A tree that yields its own special spice is rare. The generous nutmeg tree yields two quite different spices. The mace and most of the nutmeg kernels are ground and sent to market as fine powders. However, the kernels contain a fragrant, buttery oil. The small ones and the fragments are ground to powder, steamed and crushed while still warm. Out comes a thick, fragrant substance called oil of mace, or nutmeg butter.