Nutmeg is known by many names, such Myristica fragrans, mace, magic, muscdier, muskatbaum, myristica, noz moscada, nuez moscada, and nux moschata. Nutmeg.

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Description and Literature:Nutmeg.

Semen Myristicae Extract INCI Name Myristica Fragrans Extract CAS 84082-68-8 EINECS ELINCS No 282-013-3 Nutmeg extract Myristica fragrans Houtt Extract photo picture image Nutmeg is known by many names, such Myristica fragrans, mace, magic, muscdier, muskatbaum, myristica, noz moscada, nuez moscada, and nux moschata. Nutmeg

 Nutmeg tree branch. (PlantaPhile, Germany. Reproduced by permission.) is most commonly used as a cooking spice, comes from the fruit of a 50 ft (15 m) tall tropical evergreen tree. This tree grows in Indonesia, New Guinea, and the West Indies. The bark is smooth and grayish brown with green young branches and leaves. The oblong, fleshy fruit, called the nutmeg apple, contains a nut from which nutmeg is made. The dried nut and essential oil are both used as medicine.

 The nutmeg tree is a large evergreen native to the Banda Islands in the Moluccas and grows to a height of about 18 m. It produces fruits fifteen to twenty years after planting. The fruit of nutmeg tree, which is similar in colour and size to apricot, splits when ripe revealing the brilliant red arils encasing the brown nut. The red arils on drying become orange in colour and are the mace of commerce. The nut is also dried until the kernel inside rattles.

 The tree is about 25 feet high, has a greyish-brown smooth bark, abounding in a yellow juice. The branches spread in whorls - alternate leaves, on petioles about 1 inch long, elliptical, glabrous, obtuse at base - acuminate, aromatic, dark green and glossy above, paler underside and 4 to 6 inches long. Flowers dioecious, small in axillary racemes. Peduncles and pedicles glabrous. Male flowers three to five more on a peduncle. Calyx urceolate, thick and fleshy, covered with an indistinct reddish pubescence dingy pale yellow, cut into three erect teeth. Female flowers differ little from the male, except pedicel is often solitary. Fruit is a pendulous, globose drupe, consisting of a succulent pericarp - the mace arillus covering the hard endocarp, and a wrinkled kernel with ruminated endosperm. When the arillus is fresh it is a brilliant scarlet, when dry more horny, brittle, and a yellowish-brown colour. The seed or nutmeg is firm, fleshy, whitish, transversed by red-brown veins, abounding in oil.The tree does not bloom till it is nine years old, when it fruits and continues to do so for seventy-five years without attention. In Banda Islands there are three harvests, the chief one in July or August, the next in November, and the last in March or April. The fruit is gathered by means of a barb attached to a long stick. The mace is separated from the nut and both are dried separately. The nutmeg or kernel of the fruit and the arillus or mace are the official parts.

 Nutmeg is the seed of an apricot-like fruit of the nutmeg tree and mace is its arillus, a thin leathery tissue between the stone and the pulp. Both spices are strongly aromatic, resinous and warm in taste. Mace is generally said to have a finer aroma than nutmeg, but the difference is small. Nutmeg quickly loses its fragrace when ground. Naturally, nutmeg is limited to the Banda Islands, a tiny archipelago in Eastern Indonesia (Moluccas). Main producing countries today are Indonesia (East Indian Nutmeg) and Grenada (West Indian Nutmeg); the latter is regarded as inferior. In many European countries, the name of nutmeg derives from Latin nux muscatus "musky nut; moschate nut"; the Middle English form is notemugge. Mace goes back to Greek makir, which was used to denote an oriental spice, though it is not clear whether this was identical to mace.

 These spices have been appreciated since Roman times. Because of its very limited geographical distribution, nutmeg and mace became known in Europe comparatively late (11th century). Although nutmeg was available in Europe since the 13th century, significant trade started not before the 16.th century, when Portuguese ships sailed to India and further, to the famed spice islands (Moluccas). During the 17th century, the Dutch succeeded in monopolizing the nutmeg trade, as they did with cloves. This situation changed only in the 18.th century, when the Frenchman Pierre Poivre succeeded in smuggling nutmeg trees from the Bandas to Mauritius and thereby broke the Dutch monopoly. The British East India Company introduced this tree to Penang, Singapore, India, Sri Lanka and the West Indies.

 After the mace is removed, the nutmegs are dried on gratings, three to six weeks over a slow charcoal fire - but are often sun-dried for six days previously. The curing protects them from insects.

 When thoroughly dried, they rattle in the shell, which is cracked with a mallet. The nutmegs are graded, 1st Penang, 2nd Dutch (these are usually covered with lime to preserve them from insects), 3rd Singapore, and 4th long nutmegs.

 Nutmegs have a strong, peculiar and delightful fragrance and a very strong bitter warm aromatic taste.
 Semen Myristicae Extract INCI Name Myristica Fragrans Extract CAS 84082-68-8 EINECS ELINCS No 282-013-3 Nutmeg extract Myristica fragrans Houtt Extract photo picture image

 Plant part used:

 Nutmeg is not a nut, but the kernel of an apricot-like fruit. Mace is an arillus, a thin leathery tissue between the stone and the pulp; it is bright red to purple when harvested, but after drying changes to amber.

 In the nutmeg trade, broken nutmegs that have been infested by pests are referred to as "BWP grade" (broken, wormy and punky). BWP grade nutmegs must be used only for distillation of oil of nutmeg and extraction of nutmeg oleoresin. Occasionally, however, they are ground and sold illegally. For the very real danger of molds producing aflatoxines on BWP nuts, consumers should buy their nutmegs as a whole, and grind for themselves. Whole nutmegs will also keep their flavour much longer.

 The pulp of the nutmeg fruit is tough, almost woody, and very sour. In Indonesia, it is used to make a delicious jam with pleasant nutmeg aroma (selei buah pala). After the nutmegs have been collected, the outside fleshy pericarp is made into a preserve.

 Sensory quality:

 Both spices are strongly aromatic, resinous and warm in taste. Mace is generally said to have a finer aroma than nutmeg, but the difference is small. Nutmeg quickly loses its fragrance when ground; therefore, the necessary amount should be grated from a whole nut immediately before usage.

 Aroma and flavour:

 Mace is used to flavour milk-based sauces and is widely used in processed meats. It is also added sparingly to delicate soups and sauces with fish or seafood. Pickles or chutneys may be seasoned with mace. Nutmeg is a traditional flavouring for cakes, gingerbreads, biscuits and fruit or milk puddings. Today, nutmeg's popularity has shrunken and the spice is less used, still most in Arab countries, Iran and Northern India, where both nutmeg and mace appear in delicately-flavoured meat dishes.

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citations1.Nutmeg is known by many names, such Myristica fragrans, mace, magic, muscdier, muskatbaum, myristica, noz moscada, nuez moscada, and nux moschata. Nutmeg.

last edit date:3rd,July.2009.