Nutmeg refers to a number of 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 arillus of the seed. 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 easily.
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 sliced finely, cooked and crystallised to make a fragrant candy called manisan pala ("nutmeg sweets").
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 south part of 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.
While the inhabitants of the Banda Islands apparently made no use of nutmeg as a condiment, it is known to have been used as a spice and medicine in India and the Middle East as early as 700 b.c.e., (Kalbhen 1971), while its therapeutic applications have been recorded by Arab physicians since the seventh century c.e. (Weil 1967). Nutmeg did not appear in Europe until the Middle Ages and reports conflict regarding whether it was introduced by Arab traders or by returning crusaders, although it was probably a little of both. While introduced to Europe in the Middle Ages, nutmeg was likely a rare commodity until the sixteenth century when the Portuguese discovered that the Banda Islands were the hitherto concealed source of nutmeg (Stein et al. 2001).
In August 1511, on behalf of the king of Portugal, Afonso de Albuquerque conquered Malacca, which at the time was the hub of Asian trade. 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 good 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.[2] The first Europeans to reach the Bandas, the expedition remained in Banda for about one month, purchasing and filling their ships with Banda's nutmeg and mace, and with cloves in which Banda had a thriving entrepôt trade.[3] 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. But full control of this trade was not possible and they remained largely participants, rather than overlords since the authority Ternate held over the nutmeg-growing centre of the Banda Islands was quite limited. Therefore, the Portuguese failed to gain a foothold in the islands themselves.
After this discovery, nutmeg became a major European commodity. Trade was monopolized by the Portuguese and the Dutch, but eventually came under sole control of the Dutch after an extended military campaign in 1621 that left most of the Islands' inhabitants dead. The Governor General of Dutch East India Company (VOC), Jan Pieterszoon Coen played major role in enforcing the monopoly of nutmeg trade, either using pen and guns. The Dutch ran the Islands like a plantation and mounted regular expeditions to eradicate sources of nutmeg outside of their control. At the height of its value, nutmeg was carried by Europeans as a display of wealth. Nutmeg graters became fashionable accouterments, and diners would grate their own nutmeg at fancy restaurants. The Dutch continued to dominate the trade in nutmeg until the nineteenth century when the British took temporary control of the Banda Islands during the Napoleonic Wars and were able to break the monopoly by successfully cultivating nutmeg in the West Indies. Nutmeg has subsequently become a major export product in the West Indies and is now featured on the national flag of Grenada.
NUTMEG AS SPICE
Of course, nutmeg is most well-known as a spice. Nutmeg also produces the spice "mace," which is made from the red membrane, or aril, that covers the nutmeg seed. Mace is not as sweet as nutmeg, but has a more delicate flavor, although both are used similarly in cooking. Mace contains the same oils that make nutmeg psychoactive. The popularity of the two spices peaked in England in the eighteenth century. The English used nutmeg to spice a wide array of dishes, including roast mutton, stewed pork, pies, puddings, and cordials. Nutmeg and mace have been used to flavor many other foods, such as soups, gravies, milk products, fruit juices, sweet sauces, gelatins, alcoholic beverages, snack foods, and breakfast cereals; they have also been used as general condiments. Sometimes nutmeg was used quite liberally in cooking. One seventeenth century cake recipe calls for six nutmegs to two pounds of sugar (Wilson 1999). Although nutmeg was once used widely to flavor a variety of dishes, and while it remains a component of most spice cabinets, its use has dwindled to the occasional flavoring of pies, cookies, and eggnog.
"Since the time that nutmeg became popular as a spice, it has also been used in medicine."
NUTMEG AS MEDICINE
Since the time that nutmeg became popular as a spice, it has also been used in medicine. Nutmeg has been employed for healing purposes from the Middle East, to India, to China. After being introduced to Europe, many of these medicinal applications were then adopted by European physicians. While nutmeg was put to use for an assortment of medical purposes, several applications merit particular mention due to their persistence and widespread acceptance.
Nutmeg has been used to treat rheumatism in Indonesia, Malaysia, England, and China. The essential oil is used externally to treat rheumatic pains, limb pains, general aches, and inflammation. In England, far into the twentieth century, a nutmeg was simply carried in one's pocket to ward off the pains of rheumatism (Rudgley 1998).
Nutmeg has been used for its sedative effect to treat nervous complaints and to promote sleep in Malaysia and India. The inhabitants of the Moluccas would mix nutmeg with milk or a banana drink to give to children as a sleep aid (Rtsch 2005). In Europe, older women would carry nutmegs with them in silver graters to promote sound sleep (Krieg 1964). Nutmeg has also been widely used as an analgesic.
Nutmeg is probably most widely used to treat stomach complaints. It has been used in South East Asia, India, the Middle East, and Europe to treat stomach aches and cramps, to aid digestion, and to dispel gas.
Perhaps the most infamous medical use of nutmeg, as mentioned earlier, is as an abortifacient. It is not clear how far back this use dates, but it was a popular--albeit ineffective--"remedy" at the end of the nineteenth century and beginning of the twentieth century.
While there doesn't appear to be any traditional use of nutmeg as a mood elevator, several individuals have noted that it does indeed have such properties. The German writer Georg Meister noted nutmeg's uplifting effects in his 1692 work Der Orientalisch-Indianische Kunst- und Lust-Grtner (Oriental-Indian Art and Pleasure Gardener) commenting that "it can greatly refresh even the ill and cheer them up with fresh spirits" (Rtsch 2005); and the twelfth century mystic Hildegard von Bingen had this to say:
When a human being eats nutmeg it opens his heart, and his sense is pure, and it puts him in a good state of mind. Take nutmeg and (in the same amount) cinnamon and some cloves and grind them up. And then, from this powder and some water, make flour--and roll out some little tarts. Eat these often and it will lower the bitterness of your heart and your mind and open your heart and your numbed senses. It will make your spirit happy, purify and cleanse your mind, lower all bad fluids in you, give your blood a good tonic, and make you strong (Rtsch & Mller-Ebeling 2006).
Nutmeg is still used in Arabic and Indian folk medicine today, but its use as an herbal remedy in Europe is long forgotten. Use as a medicine never seems to have caught on in the United States, with the exception of its use as an abortifacient in the nineteenth century.
NUTMEG AS APHRODISIAC
One little-known application of nutmeg is its traditional use as an aphrodisiac. In India, nutmeg has been added to curry dishes and also to betel quids for its aphrodisiac effect (Rtsch 2005). Nutmeg is recognized as an aphrodisiac in Malaysia and in Arab countries, and its counterpart, mace, is prescribed by physicians in the Near East as an aphrodisiac (Forrest & Heacock 1972).
While the use of nutmeg as an aphrodisiac in Europe does not appear to have been well-known or widespread, several examples exist. William Salmon, a seventeenth century Englishman writing in 1693, described a self-experiment in which nutmeg oil rubbed on the genitals produced sexual excitation (Rudgley 1998, citing Salmon 1693). Most peculiar, perhaps, is an old German folk tradition in which a girl would swallow a nutmeg whole, collect the intact nut after it passed, and then powder and mix it in the food of her beloved. Doing such was supposed to cause the man in question to fall deeply in love with the girl (Rtsch 2005).
The traditional use of nutmeg as an aphrodisiac was recently put to the test by researchers at the Aligarh Muslim University in Aligarh, India. Their findings strongly support such an application. Their study was conducted by orally administering a 50% ethanol extract of nutmeg to male rats and monitoring changes in mating behaviors and sexual function. The extract was shown to significantly increase the frequency of erections and the mounting frequency, to decrease the amount of time between sexual episodes, and to significantly delay ejaculation in the test animals. In an earlier study on male mice, conducted by the same group, four of the six mice mated three females each while the remaining two mated five females each. This is in comparison to the control group, where two mice mated two females each and the remaining four mated only one female a piece. In order to test the purely libido-enhancing effects of nutmeg separately from the effects on physical sexual function, the research group anesthetized the genitals of the test animals and monitored the mounting behavior. While the rats could not properly perform, their attempts to mount were significantly higher than those in the control group. In addition, the research group conducted testing to determine the toxicity of the 50% ethanol extract, and found that doses up to eight times the active dose in the test animals displayed no signs of short-term toxicity (i.e., no mortality and no gross behavioral changes). The findings of these studies strongly corroborate the traditional uses of nutmeg to improve sexual function and enhance the sex drive, and suggest that nutmeg may be a safe and effective herbal remedy in treating sexual disorders (Tajuddin et al. 2003; Tajuddin et al. 2005).
NUTMEG FOR DREAM ENHANCEMENT
There is not much written about the effect of nutmeg upon dreaming. Many experimenters have described the effects of nutmeg as having a dream-like quality and of promoting vivid daydreams. Many users also report increased dream recall as well as an increase in the vividness and lucidity of their dreams. From my own experiences, as well, I have found that nutmeg increases dream recall.
The most complete report of the effects of nutmeg on dreams comes from Paul Devereaux, who ingested two teaspoons of ground nutmeg and sprinkled essential oil of nutmeg on his pillow and sheets as part of a self-experiment. Devereaux reported becoming fully self-aware during a dream where he was flying through a tunnel at high speed. Devereaux also found that his tactile senses were partially operational while dreaming. When flying over a landscape of sorts, Devereaux described snatching at the leaves of a passing tree and reported feeling "the pull of the branches and the foliage digging into my hand" (Rudgley 1998).
Devereaux's report reinforces the contention that nutmeg may have an effect on the lucidity of dreams and on dream recall; however, more definite support is lacking.
source
Wikipedia
http://www.alternet.org/drugreporter/140480/do_you_know_about_the_narcotic_effects_of_nutmeg?page=1
Sejarah Melayu or Malay Annals (Oxford in Asia Historical Reprints)
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