The tree bears fruit all the year round, so that nutmegs may be collected at all times. It is, however, customary to collect two principal crops, one during October, November, and December, and another during April, May, and June. The nuts are picked by hand or gathered by means of long hooks and the thick pericarp removed. The red arillus is also carefully removed and flattened between blocks of wood so as to reduce the danger of breaking as much as possible. Mace and nuts are then dried separately. The nuts are placed upon hurdles for several weeks until the kernels, nutmegs, rattle inside of the thin, tasteless, and odorless hard shell. This shell is now carefully broken and removed; the worm-eaten nutmegs are thrown away and the sound ones are rolled in powdered lime and again dried for several weeks. Generally the drying is done over a smoldering fire so that the nuts are really smoke dried. For shipment they are packed in air-tight boxes which have been smoked and dusted with lime on the inside. Liming gives the nuts a peculiar mottled appearance and tends to destroy parasites which may be present.
Mace loses its carmine color upon drying and becomes reddish-brown and very brittle. It has an odor and taste similar to those of the nut, but is more delicately aromatic. Wild or Bombay mace is obtained from Myristica fatua and is frequently used to adulterate the true mace or Banda mace. The nuts of M. fatua are longer than those of M. fragrans and are therefore designated as long nutmegs; the term "male nutmegs" applied to them is incorrect. The long nutmeg is greatly inferior to the true nutmeg, or round nutmeg as it is sometimes called.
Banda supplies by far the most nutmegs at the present time. Penang nutmegs are of excellent quality and are always placed upon the market unlimed, but they are frequently limed subsequently in foreign ports and markets. Singapore nutmegs are usually unlimed. Nutmegs are generally designated by the name of the country from which they are obtained, as Dutch or Batavian, Sumatra, Penang, Singapore, Java, and Banda nutmegs.
There are a number of so-called nutmegs which are derived from plants not even remotely related to Myristica. Ackawai, Camara, or Camaru nutmeg is the nut of a tree growing in Guiana highly valued as a cure for colic and dysentery. American, Jamaica, Mexican, or Calabash nutmeg is the spicy seed of Monodora Myristica. Brazilian nutmeg is the seed of Cryptocarya moschata, which serves as a very inferior substitute for nutmeg. California nutmeg is the fruit of a conifer (Torreya), which resembles nutmeg so closely in appearance that it has been supposed that Myristica fragrans was a native of California. This fruit has, however, a very camphoraceous odor. Clove or Madagascar nutmeg is the fruit of Ravensara aromatica, a tree native in Madagascar. Peruvian nutmeg is the seed of Laurelia sempervirens.
The nutmeg has a peculiar mottled appearance, ranging from grayish brown to light gray or white in the limed article, the depressions and grooves holding the lime while the ridges and elevations are free from it. In Shakespeare's Henry V. the Duke of Orleans, in speaking of the dauphin's dapple-gray horse, says: "He's of the color of nutmeg." The taste of nutmeg is peculiarly aromatic, pungent, and somewhat bitter.
The principal use of nutmeg is that of a spice, although not so commonly employed or so well liked as some other spices. It contains a fat which forms the nutmeg butter; this is an unctuous solid substance of an orange-brown or yellowish-brown color, with the odor and taste of nutmeg. This fat is used as a stimulating application in rheumatism, sprains, and paralysis. Nutmegs also contain some volatile oil, which is said to be poisonous; at least some persons are very susceptible to the effects of the volatile oil of nutmeg. In this connection it might be stated that the frequent and long-continued use of spices is injurious, producing dyspepsia, functional heart trouble, and nervousness, and seems to have a special action upon the liver, causing an excessive development of connective tissue and a reduction in the functional activity of the liver cells: "Nutmeg liver" is a condition resulting from passive venous congestion of that organ, and refers to its mottled or nut-meggy appearance only.
Mace is comparatively rich in volatile oil. Nutmeg and mace are both extensively employed as condiments. They are frequently given in the form of a powder to stimulate and aid digestion. Nutmeg flavor consists of nutmeg, oil of nutmeg, and alcohol. Mace-ale is ale sweetened and spiced with mace.
It is stated that whole nutmegs have been adulterated with wooden imitations. Connecticut is known as the Wooden Nutmeg State because it is facetiously said that such nutmegs were manufactured there.
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| FROM KŒHLER'S MEDICINAL-PFLANZEN. | NUTMEG. | |
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