December 22, 2024 • 33 mins
This spice drove European exploration and globalization -- and meant genocide for the native producers. In today's classic episode, Anney and Lauren dig into that history (and the psychedelic science) of nutmeg.
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Speaker 1 (00:08):
Hello, and welcome savor prediction of iHeartRadio. I'm Annie Reese.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
And I'm Lorn Vogelbaum, and today we have a classic
episode for you about nutmeg.
Speaker 3 (00:17):
Yes, oh yeah, what an episode it is?
Speaker 2 (00:20):
Oh yeah, yeah, this is a good, slash weird, one
slash little, it's all those things. It originally aired in
November of twenty eighteen. You might have noticed that all
of our recent classics have been from like the fall
to winter of twenty eighteen, and that's because that's where
I am on our classic rotation list. Yeah that makes sense,
(00:44):
It makes sense here we are.
Speaker 1 (00:46):
And yeah, that make is a very for a lot
of us associated with this time of year, of the
holidays in the US in North America. But people use
it all the time. I got ella a bit of
a bit about it with a friend who was like,
I can't imagine it in savory things.
Speaker 3 (01:05):
Oh really, you.
Speaker 2 (01:09):
Know, yeah, yeah, like a little bit of nutmeg can
set things off in such a lovely way. I mean,
you know, perhaps perhaps obviously I say, somewhat snobbly in
like a like a kind of sausage sort of situation.
I feel like that's one of those gets mixed in
there with with all of those like nice processed meat
products a lot of the time, but also like a
(01:30):
really classic French thing to do is to grate just
a tiny bit of nutmeg over any kind of cream
sauce that you're doing just really sets it off.
Speaker 3 (01:42):
Yeah, that sounds good. That sounds good. Nutmeg.
Speaker 2 (01:47):
It is one of the things that I do to
my like goofy like boxed mac and cheese that I
miss at home to make it taste like food.
Speaker 1 (01:57):
Yes, I'll keep that in mind because my New Year's
tradition now as I eat mac and cheese, okay cool.
I mean I also do the the soup that I've
described before that uses all the Southern traditional things.
Speaker 3 (02:10):
But New Year's Eve, I eat mac and cheese.
Speaker 2 (02:13):
Oh okay, okay, okay, yeah, yeah, so I'll keep that
in mind.
Speaker 3 (02:16):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (02:17):
Yeah, Well I suppose that we should let former Annie
and Lauren take it away.
Speaker 3 (02:33):
Hello, and welcome to Savor. I'm Annie Reach.
Speaker 2 (02:35):
And I'm Lauren Vocal Bomb. And today we're talking about nutmeg.
Speaker 3 (02:38):
Yes, nutmeg, the nuts a nice spice.
Speaker 2 (02:41):
Oh, I mean, it's it's nice in terms of flavor.
Just historically speaking, every spice ever is horrific.
Speaker 3 (02:48):
That's true.
Speaker 1 (02:49):
And I like nutmeg, but I find I almost always
overuse it. Oh, it's a very powerful flavor.
Speaker 2 (02:56):
It's a light touch spice for sure. Yeah, I see,
I love an me like. I will put nutmeg on
just about anything and everything, like say, very.
Speaker 3 (03:03):
Sweet, what have you? But again a light touch mm hmm.
Speaker 1 (03:07):
This was a lesson I had to learn and still
apparently I'm I just have a heavy hand. My mom
has a word for it. I can't remember. Clumsy head.
It's something funny, I'll ask her.
Speaker 3 (03:17):
Yeah, come back.
Speaker 1 (03:18):
But any way, this brings us to our question, and
it's a two parter.
Speaker 3 (03:27):
What is it?
Speaker 1 (03:28):
And what the heck is a pendulous droope?
Speaker 2 (03:36):
Well, and we promise that the pendulous droop thing has
to do with nutmeg.
Speaker 1 (03:41):
Yeah, it's not just some unrelated thing, although I wouldn't
put that past.
Speaker 3 (03:44):
Does a pendulous droop? Okay?
Speaker 2 (03:49):
A droop is a fruit that grows from a single
ovary and contains a single seed or pit think peaches
or plums or olives. And pendulous just means hanging rather
than being like more dire attached to a branch. So yes,
pendulous drup and in some plants, the seed or pit
at hand is good to eat, Like you get almonds
(04:09):
by cracking up in the pit of an almond tree's fruit,
and you get nutmegs by processing a nutmeg trees fruit.
So nutmeg is a spice that comes mostly from a
plant by the botanical name Murstka fragrance. It's a tropical
evergreen tree with glossy, dark green leaves, and all parts
of this plant are fragrant. But the part humans are
(04:31):
mostly concerned.
Speaker 3 (04:32):
With is the fruit.
Speaker 2 (04:34):
These trees grow these yellowish fruits that look a little
bit like apricots. Oh. When they're ripe, the fruit splits
open along its seam, you know, the like the butt
of a peach.
Speaker 3 (04:42):
Yeah, like that seem.
Speaker 2 (04:43):
And it reveals the pit. And these pits look wild, y'all.
It's like something out of a John Carpenter film. Like seriously,
they're like shiny and black and partially covered in this
bright red, fleshy sort of like thick netting. It looks
like Freddy Krueger's face in pit format.
Speaker 1 (05:00):
Well, this is very important for me to know because
I've been on a deep dive of Every Friday, the
Thirteenth movie and Nightmare on Elm Street movie and Halloween Movie.
Speaker 3 (05:10):
It's been a really long Halloween month for me. But
long or fabulous.
Speaker 1 (05:14):
Oh, it's been wonderful. But I didn't know one that
Jason went to New York. He took Manhattan, and then
he went to Hell and that's where he met Freddy, right,
and then he went to Space because the FBI was like,
let's just send him to space.
Speaker 2 (05:27):
Oh that's why he ended up in space.
Speaker 1 (05:29):
Yeah, because there's a secret compound under Crystal Lake. We're
just sputtering nonsense to never seen Friday the thirteenth.
Speaker 3 (05:38):
Let's get back to nutmeg.
Speaker 2 (05:40):
Yes, okay, So if you take this weird Freddy Krueger
looking pit out of the fruit and then scrape off
that red stuff and then crack the pit open.
Speaker 3 (05:49):
Inside you'll find a nutmeg. But you don't want to
do that.
Speaker 2 (05:53):
Like fresh off the tree, these things have to be
dried first, traditionally in hot shaded buildings for up to
two months. And when the nutmeg seed or kernel starts
rattling around and it's pit, it's ready to go. Now,
if you've never seen one hole, nutmeg is a dark
brown and it looks looks a little bit like a
smaller sort of wrinkly pecan in its shell, or like
(06:15):
a sort of bloated almond, like if you just sort
of puffed an almond up full of full of air,
like a balloon. I'm not using any attractive words here,
I'm sorry. It's really not there to be pretty though.
The seed or kernel is just packed dense with all
of these squiggly little layers of food that would have
been used by the seed to grow a new plant.
But as it turns out, if you dry out and
(06:37):
then grind or grate up that seed stuff, it's delicious
to humans too. It's fragrant and warm and woody, with
a little sweetness and a little bite.
Speaker 1 (06:45):
The tree is native to Indonesia's Moluccas aka the Spice Islands,
and that's where a lot of it is cultivated, along
with the Caribbean, and here in the States it's a
popular spice in baked goods, particularly in the fall part
of eggnog. I still top my whisky sours with nutmeg
when I'm feeling fancy, because remember we went to We
(07:06):
went downstairs to a place called eighteen twenty one bitters.
Speaker 2 (07:10):
Oh right, and she did she shaved some nutmeg over
the top of it.
Speaker 3 (07:13):
And it was amazing. It was beautiful. It was amazing.
Speaker 1 (07:15):
It's it's a little sweet and very aromatic, but it's
popular in a huge variety of dishes, from meats to
vegetables to sauces. The spice mace comes from the arrows
that are on the outside of the nutmeg seed.
Speaker 3 (07:28):
Yeah, that bright red netting stuff. That's so cool. Yeah, yeah,
like the more you know, yeah, the more you know.
Speaker 2 (07:37):
Mace is a little more biting and less sweet than nutmeg,
but with an otherwise similar flavor profile. And nutmeg is
still used pretty liberally in Dutch, Tuscan, North African and
Canadian cuisine and provide some warm notes to some French sauces.
Mace is more popular in Indian cuisines. The fruit can
also be eaten and is by some nutmeg farmers and
their communities. It can be eaten fresh with like a
(07:59):
pinch of salt and chili, or dried and sugared, or
made into juice or jam or pickles or wine. And yeah,
all parts of the nutmeg plant taste vaguely of nutmeg.
Speaker 1 (08:08):
Makes sense, The word nutmeg might refer to different seeds
in different countries.
Speaker 3 (08:13):
Just to keep us all on our toes.
Speaker 1 (08:15):
As far as the name goes, it might come from
either an old Arabic word or an old French word
for musk, meaning fragrant, and then possibly the French word
for nut combined with that nut meg.
Speaker 3 (08:28):
And what about nutrition.
Speaker 2 (08:31):
Well, nutmeg, I mean it's a spice. I mean, like
in the amount that you would use it culinarily, it's
pretty much null. But maybe you've hoed that people use
nutmeg non culinarily.
Speaker 3 (08:44):
I don't know what you're talking about. Lauren, Well, you
did some of the research, so I certainly hope you have. Okay,
I did.
Speaker 1 (08:51):
Yeah, you probably heard some interesting things about nutmegs properties. Specifically,
it's psychedelic and hallucinogenic properties. If you consume somewhere around
four to eight teaspoons, nutmeg does have psychoactive effects. The
sensation of floating is what most partakers report experiencing. It
can take a minute for it to hit or not
(09:11):
a minute, a couple of hours, and it could last
four days. It comes with a lot of unpleasant side
effects after vomiting, raising heart diarrhea, and a quote nutmeg
burp every twenty minutes, which I find interesting rarely. Nutmeg poisoning,
which is about twelve teaspoons, can result in palpitations, pain, convulsions,
(09:32):
and possibly death. Some prison kitchens have banned nutmeg for
this reason. Malcolm X even mentioned nutmeg in his autobiography quote,
start into a glass of cold water. A penny matchbox
full of nutmeg had the kick of three or four reefers.
Speaker 3 (09:48):
Huh.
Speaker 1 (09:49):
William S Burrows wrote about it too. Results are vaguely
similar to marijuana, with side effects of headache and nausea.
Death would probably supervene before addiction of such addiction as possible.
Speaker 3 (10:01):
I have only taken nutmeg once.
Speaker 2 (10:03):
Other experimenters have compared a nutmeg high to having a
two day hangover.
Speaker 3 (10:09):
That sounds terrible. I agree. Hmm, Well, what's happening here, Lauren? Okay?
Speaker 2 (10:16):
Nutmeg contains a lot of interesting compounds that give it
it's aroma and flavor. Linna lul brings a sort of
floral spice terrapinol, piny citrus usenol clove, sort of spice
camp fiend. This pungent bite dipentene is lemony and pineine
as well. Piney oh.
Speaker 3 (10:33):
Yeah. For once, words makes sense more or less makes sense.
Speaker 2 (10:38):
But yet nutmeg also contains a few interesting compounds. Maristicin,
named for the nutmeg plant, can suppress the action of
a particular neurotransmitter and thus prevent some of your nerves
from firing. These nerves are responsible for involuntary and voluntary
muscle movement in the in the guts, the lungs, and elsewhere,
(10:59):
and some researchers think that this is why a nutmeg
high makes you feel sluggish, and also why nutmeg has
been used medicinally to treat stuff like gastro intestinal distress,
like it might prevent muscles from cramping in those areas.
It's also a precursor to MMDA, which is a psychedelic amphetamine.
And then there are a couple other compounds elementsin and
(11:21):
saff roll, both of which are psychoactive precursors to MDMA
or ecstasy. And there are all sorts of theories about
how these and other compounds of nutmeg interact with each
other and with your body as they're like broken down
in the digestive system and liver in order to create.
Speaker 1 (11:38):
This high, right, and the chemical behind this whole thing
that maristicin is bad news for dogs, potentially fatal level
bad news.
Speaker 3 (11:48):
Yeah, don't take nutmeg for recreational use. Don't do it. No, no,
do it.
Speaker 2 (11:53):
Also, beware of anything that's selling nutmeg for medicinal use.
It is sold as a treatment for everything from aforementioned
guest or intestinal issues to kidney disease to cancer, but
there is not enough scientific evidence to say whether it
helps with any of those things. However, studies are ongoing.
Research in rats has shown that high doses of nutmeg
(12:14):
oil are more effective than traditional pain medication in helping
ease pain and swelling due to inflammation, the sort of
inflammation seen in arthritis, and with fewer side effects. So
it would be pretty cool if something came out of that,
but does don't go dosing yourself. Like the oil that
they were using was specially formulated to contain less of
the stuff that makes you ill. If you just eat
(12:37):
a lot of nutmeg, you'd get nauseated a long time
before you would see arthritis benefits.
Speaker 1 (12:41):
Yeah, and if we look at numbers, they can be
a little tough to pin down, but estimates put global
nutmeg production between somewhere between ten and twelve thousand metric
tons annually. Indonesia accounts for seventy five percent of that production,
and Granada comes in second with about twenty percent. But
nowadays you can find nutmeg pretty much anywhere and cheaply.
(13:06):
But at one time nutmeg was worth its.
Speaker 3 (13:09):
Weight in gold.
Speaker 1 (13:10):
And then some oh yeah, tens of thousands died in
the fight to control nutmeg yay spices. Yeah yeah, And
we'll get into that after a quick break for word
from our sponsor.
Speaker 3 (13:33):
And we're back. Thank you, sponsors, yes, thank you. All right.
Speaker 1 (13:35):
So nutmeg history. Before it was used for food, nutmeg
was used as an encense or in these small perfume
bags called satchets.
Speaker 2 (13:46):
Supposedly it was part of the spice blend used inside
Egyptian mummies.
Speaker 1 (13:50):
Egyptian mummy spice blend. Why can I not buy that anywhere?
Speaker 2 (13:53):
Oh well, that's our next spice blend. It's true, all right, okay.
Speaker 1 (13:59):
Nouas it was a part of the royal perfume used
in Iran and preserved nutmeg was recorded in China as
early as two hundred CE. Plenty wrote about it in
first century CE. Persian physician Iban Sinna wrote about what
he called the Bonda nut sometime around one thousand CE,
(14:19):
and the Bonda nut is probably.
Speaker 2 (14:22):
Nutmeg Banda is the old term for the island where
it was found.
Speaker 1 (14:27):
Yes, around the same time, Holy Roman Emperor Henry the
sixth had the streets fumigated with nutmegs in honor of
his coronation.
Speaker 3 (14:38):
Oh that sounds delightful, it does.
Speaker 1 (14:41):
Records show that had made it all the way out
to Byzantem by sixth century CE, and there are records
describing a sprinkling of nutmeg on peace pudding old episode
throwback dating back to the eighth century, lots of innisul use.
Going on to records show that Europeans were using it
as a cure for nervous ailments by the seventh century.
Speaker 3 (15:01):
And we say all the way out.
Speaker 1 (15:04):
Because for centuries you could only find it on this
one isolated island chain, the Bonda Islands, of which yeah,
there are ten of them. Arab traders were the first
outsiders to discover nutmeg, and they charged a fortune for it.
When the Turks seized control of Constantinople which is modern
day Istanbul, in fourteen fifty three, they cut off trade
(15:27):
on the one strip of land that had allowed some
merchants to bypass the Arab Venetian trade monopoly because at
the time Arab traders sold to Europe through Venice. Columbus
was looking for a shortcut to the Spice Islands to
get around this whole mess when he stumbled on the
Americas instead. When Vasco de Gama's forces laid siege to
(15:49):
Kerala in fourteen ninety seven, his soldiers cried for.
Speaker 3 (15:53):
Christ and spices.
Speaker 1 (15:56):
This is destiny of the world stuff we're talking about here.
I did buy the search for nutmeg. The Benedictine abbess
Hildegarde de Bengen wrote about nutmeg's psychoactive properties all the
way back in twelfth century CE, so we humans have
known something was up with nutmeg for a while, and
because of its rarity, nutmeg was super expensive. German records
(16:21):
from the fourteenth century list the price for a pound
of nutmeg at seven fat oxen.
Speaker 3 (16:27):
Not skinny oxen, No fat oxen. Yeah, like good ones.
Something else.
Speaker 1 (16:32):
I ran across claimed that at one point in England,
selling a handful of nutmeg nuts would set you up
for life. Never had work again. The nutmeg situation changed
in fifteen eleven when Portuguese conquer a Fonso de Albuquerque
captured the Moluccas and demanded that the indigenous islanders lead
him to the source of the nutmeg, which they did.
(16:53):
Both The local successfully kept the Portuguese from occupying the
Banda Islands and eventually drove the Portuese. Also wanted to
mention that Leonardo da Vinci's fifteen to ten packing list
read inkorn, penknife, get hold of skull, nutmeg. That sounds
(17:13):
like how a lot of my list shape.
Speaker 3 (17:16):
I want to hang out with Leo so hard, get
hold of get hold of a skull, period a nutmeg,
I agree, dude.
Speaker 1 (17:27):
And this is around the time when nutmeg star really
started to rise. Spices were all a rage among the
rich because they were the only ones who could afford them. Really,
they might have been using it for its hallucinogenic properties
as well and also medicinally just as much as for food.
Some believed that nutmeg could keep away not only the
(17:49):
common cold, but also the bubonic plague.
Speaker 3 (17:53):
It could not. No.
Speaker 1 (17:54):
No, science has shown that fleas appear to really dislike
the smell of nutmeg, soo. The leading European medical institution
during the Middle Ages, the Salerno School, had this to
say about nutmeg. One nut is good for you, the
second will do you harm, the third will kill you.
(18:14):
And it was seen as an affrodisiac guys obviously.
Speaker 3 (18:17):
Of course, of course, also thought to relieve sleeplessness, poison bites,
and flatulence. Oh sure, Yeah.
Speaker 2 (18:26):
And then there's also a rumor that Nostrodamus was taking
a lot of it and other miled to hallucinogens like
it while he was writing up his prophecies.
Speaker 3 (18:35):
Oh so that's where they came from. Yeah, and thanks
to producer Dylan for that hot tip. Yes, I love
this too.
Speaker 1 (18:43):
Some rich French chefs would get these really fancy nutmeg
graders made and they would show them off at fancy
dinner parties. Like if someone was like, oh, I've only
had a way to grate this nutmeg.
Speaker 3 (18:54):
It'd be like, oh, I have a way. I love it.
Speaker 1 (18:59):
I want to carry o a pline apple and a
fancy nutmeg greater.
Speaker 3 (19:04):
Yeah, people will never invite me to parties again. Oh okay,
I would.
Speaker 2 (19:09):
I think that if I think you don't want to
hang out with those people anyway.
Speaker 3 (19:13):
You're right, Lauren, You're always full of such good advice.
Speaker 1 (19:17):
Okay, so now we need to talk about the Dutch
East India Company because they really wanted a monopoly on
the nutmeg trade. To that end, they went to the Bondanese,
forcing them to trade nutmeg for Dutch goods that the
Bondanese didn't need, like thick, heavy clothing. They were in
the tropics, they had no need for that kind of stuff.
And they also forced the Bondanese rulers to sign quote
(19:39):
the Eternal Treaty in sixteen oh nine, which secured the
Dutch East India Company's spice trade monopoly on the islands.
And things escalated after that when the Bondas attacked the
fortress the Dutch had built in the region, Fort Nassau.
They killed the admiral and forty of his officers. At
(20:00):
the same time, the British were doing their best to
chip away at the duchess hold on the spice trade
and the Spice Islands. They managed to secure two small
Banda islands, Run and I. Run was the first British
colony in the world, but the Dutch fought tooth and nail,
and in sixteen fifteen they attacked the British controlled Spice Islands.
(20:22):
The British lost control of Eye but solidified their forces
on run and killed two hundred of the Dutchess soldiers.
The British forces were able to reclaim I, but about
a year later the Dutch attacked them again, and when
the British used up all of their AMMO, the Dutch
massacred them. Oh Determined to take full control of the Bondas,
(20:42):
the Dutch East India Company dispatched soldiers to the islands
who used alleged violations to this eternal Treaty as justification
for beheading forty indigenous leaders. And if that wasn't terrible enough,
they then committed genocide against the Bondas history or in estimate,
the population went from around fifteen thousand to around one thousand.
(21:06):
Any mail over the age of fifteen was quartered and beheaded.
The survivors were then enslaved and used to cultivate nutmeg.
A decade and a half later, the population had dropped
even lower to six hundred. Oh my goodness, and all
of these horrible acts made Dutch plantation owners filthy rich.
(21:27):
They sold nutmeg at a markup of three hundred times
in Europe. The Dutch East India Company was the richest
company in the world. Each year, shareholders got a forty
percent dividend, and the company employed over fifty thousand people
and ten thousand soldiers across two hundred ships. To get
more product, they brought in slaves from other Indonesian islands
(21:49):
like Java. Meanwhile, the English and French tried to circumvent
the Dutch's control of nutmeg with subterfuge to get their
hands on fertile nutmeg seeds. To prevent this, nutmeg seeds
were coated in lime so they wouldn't sprout. The export
of nutmeg growing trees was banned, and anyone suspected of growing, stealing,
(22:10):
or selling nutmeg outside of Dutch approval faced the death penalty.
Speaker 2 (22:15):
And that lime thing was so prevalent for so long
that even after the monopoly fell, producers would continue to
bleach nutmegs for like a good long while because according
to consumers, that's what nutmegs looks like.
Speaker 3 (22:26):
Oh my goodness.
Speaker 1 (22:28):
And then Peter Piper got involved. Of course, he's always
popping up everywhere.
Speaker 2 (22:35):
Peter Piper, Like Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers.
Speaker 3 (22:39):
Yeah, fame that one, yep, that one. He's a real guy.
He was a real dude.
Speaker 1 (22:45):
His actual name was Pierre Poavre, which translated to English
comes out to be Peter Piper. He wore many hats,
a pirate's hat, a horticulturist hat. I guess that's a
gardened cap, and he also had lost one of his arms.
At the time, Pepper referred to all kinds of spice nuts,
so nutmeg peppers relevant here. Pierre stole all kinds of
(23:08):
things from the Dutch for his garden, including nutmeg. Because
of him, France was able to plant some nutmeg seeds
on their colony of Mauritius. And this brings us to
the question did the Dutch really trade the island of
Manhattan for nutmeg? Before we answer that, we're gonna pause
(23:29):
for one more quick break for word from our sponsor,
and we're back. Thank you, sponsor, Yes, thank you, all right,
So let's answer this question. It's a popular cocktail type, Oh,
surely a question. After centuries of bloodshed and warring of
(23:52):
her territory, the Dutch Anglo War had just ended. The
British and the Dutch were looking to cool things down
a bit. In sixteen sixty seven, they entered negotiations. The
British wanted new Amsterdam or Manhattan, and the Dutch wanted
Britain's last nutmeg producing island, Bonda Run and a South
(24:14):
American sugar producing territory. Is like the cherry on top
on what they won both of those things. The Treaty
of Breda was signed and the exchange was made, and
soul was history.
Speaker 3 (24:25):
So the answer is yes, yeah, kind kind of m hm.
Speaker 1 (24:29):
New Amsterdam, by the way, was discovered by English explorer
Henry Hudson, who was commissioned by the Dutch East India
Company to find a northeast passage from Asia to the
Arctic Ocean. He didn't, but he did find Long Island,
and that's where the name of the Hudson River comes from.
The Dutch purportedly traded items valued at around twenty four
(24:51):
dollars to the tribe they found on Manhattan Island. The
tribe didn't really live there though, and that they called
it quote a place where we all got drunk or
mena HACTINUK. Sorry if I butchered that, but yeah, because
that's another thing you'll hear a lot in that conversation
is twenty four dollars.
Speaker 3 (25:10):
That's where that comes from.
Speaker 1 (25:11):
Okay, so about a century and a half goes by,
with the Dutch maintaining total control.
Speaker 3 (25:16):
Of the nutmeg trade.
Speaker 1 (25:18):
Then comes the Napoleonic Wars from eighteen oh three to
eighteen fifteen, pitting the Dutch, which is now at this
time part of Napoleon's Empire, against the English again. So
the British went straight for the Spice Islands. They launched
an attack against one of the Bunda Islands in eighteen
ten and the Dutch lost their fort Nassau. But when
(25:40):
the first phase of the Napoleonic Wars ended in eighteen fourteen,
control went back to the Dutch with the First Treaty
of Paris. But the British had nutmeg seeds now seeds
that they planted on their tropical colonial outposts like Singapore,
Malaysia and Sri Lanka, and nutmeg spread from there, causing
the price to drop dramatically. Regular folks in Europe and
(26:03):
Asia could afford it, and they started incorporating it into
their cuisine. British controlled Granada went on to become the
second largest producer of nutmeg, and to this day their
flag has the shape of a nutmeg on it, and
folks were still looking to use it for other things
other than eating. During the nineteenth century, women looking to
induce a miscarriage would ingest large quantities of nutmeg. And
(26:28):
here's some slightly more modern day trivia. Apparently Connecticut is
known as the nutmeg State.
Speaker 3 (26:34):
That was news to me me.
Speaker 2 (26:36):
As well, I don't particularly associate. I mean, it doesn't
grow there, right, I mean unless you have a hot house.
Speaker 1 (26:42):
I suppose any listeners who have a hot house growing
nutmeg in Connecticut, please, yeah.
Speaker 3 (26:48):
Send pictures.
Speaker 1 (26:50):
There are two reasons given for why Connecticut has this nickname.
One goes that some sneaky merchants in the state would
carve these little wooden nutmegs and sell them as the
real deal.
Speaker 3 (27:03):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (27:04):
The second story takes a nicer look at these merchants,
suggesting that folks didn't realize nutmeg wouldn't crack open the
same way a walnut wood and that you needed to
grade it instead, and concluded that the entire seed was
composed of wood.
Speaker 2 (27:18):
Yeah, oh man, how disappointing. Oh like to like greate
what you think is a nutmeg and it's just sawdust
And then you're like, oh.
Speaker 3 (27:26):
He probably paid a lot for it, Like a lot.
Speaker 2 (27:29):
This practice occurred back in England as well, and led
to a slang use of the word nutmeg. In Victorian times,
to be nutmegged was to be tricked in a way
that made you look and feel foolish.
Speaker 3 (27:40):
Oh, I kind of love it.
Speaker 2 (27:42):
Yeah, And that slang in turn may have led to
the sports term nutmeg. In football, soccer, or hockey or
other games, a nutmeg is when you hawk the ball
between an opponent's legs.
Speaker 3 (27:54):
I didn't know that. Yeah, I love it. That's yeah,
that's pretty fantastic.
Speaker 2 (28:00):
And yeah, some more modern history. By the twentieth century,
further reductions in prices garnered a greater demand and availability
of nutmeg through the nineteen seventies, until an oversaturated market
dropped prices even more in the nineteen eighties, leading to
the formation of a cartel among the Indonesian and Grenadan
producers that set minimum prices, but producers from both countries
(28:24):
pretty much immediately tried to undercut those prices, so it
wasn't a really successful cartel. And part of the issue
here was the Cold War. That Cold War, because the
nineteen eighties was when the US forcibly removed the Marxist
government from Granada. Ending the country's nutmeg profitable ties to Russia.
Whether or not Russia was there for the nutmeg or
(28:46):
there for the location in the Caribbean as a outpost
closed to the US. I mean, you can decide for yourself.
But on a visit to Granada in nineteen eighty six,
President Reagan a pair joked that the Russians and Cubans
had mostly wanted Granada for the nutmeg. Like he was like, oh,
Laul's that's such a funny idea quote. What they were
(29:07):
really after was Christmas.
Speaker 3 (29:09):
I'm sure it killed at the time. I'm positive it did.
Speaker 2 (29:14):
But the thing that I find interesting about this entire
Cold War bit is that in the late eighties and
early nineties it became trendy again to buy whole nutmegs
and grate them fresh at home instead of buying pre
ground nutmeg, which is what had been available in supermarkets
for the past few decades. And this might be a
direct result of marketing done by Americans who were attempting
(29:34):
to fix Granada's economy after they cut ties to Russia.
Speaker 3 (29:38):
That is interesting, huh, Like, I can't prove it one
way or another, but like the tie is there? Mm hm. Anyway.
Speaker 2 (29:45):
Yeah, today, in the Caribbean, in particular, small farms like
the nutmeg farms on Granada are a really great source
of jobs and businesses and are thought to be like good,
steady supplements to the tourism industry that dominates so much
of the area. But climate change and the increasing number
and intensity of hurricanes is making life harder for folks
in agriculture there.
Speaker 3 (30:05):
Yeah, this one had a lot of Yeah.
Speaker 2 (30:10):
I don't really have like a positive like thing ending
for that one. I'm like, oh, man, I still really
like nutmeg.
Speaker 3 (30:16):
Oh that's harsh.
Speaker 1 (30:20):
Yeah, And I think as this comes out as it airs,
except we don't really air.
Speaker 3 (30:27):
They has this radio.
Speaker 2 (30:28):
Well like sure, no, I mean the sound waves move
through air to get to your ears.
Speaker 3 (30:35):
Well, yeah, as it's released.
Speaker 1 (30:38):
It is the holiday season and nutmeg is everywhere.
Speaker 3 (30:45):
It's probably in your pumpkin spice mix. Oh sure. Yeah.
And we've mentioned before, I think last year around this time,
coworker Alex he makes eggnog from George Washington's original recipe
and it's delicious. Artha Washington's original recipe, right, oh, thank you.
Speaker 2 (31:02):
No, no problem, It's I do it all for Martha.
Speaker 3 (31:07):
As you should, but I know that.
Speaker 1 (31:09):
I think last year I put a lot of nutmeg
on top of mine and it was lovely.
Speaker 3 (31:13):
It's worthwhile, it is, Oh it is.
Speaker 1 (31:16):
But this year I hope I don't drink too much
nutmeg because there is a lot of alcohol in this
Washington recipe by the way. Oh yeah, and then tell
everyone about Nutmeg's terrible pass. That sounds like something I
will do.
Speaker 3 (31:27):
Oh, that sounds like something both of us will do.
We're so fun. Yeah, we're buckets of joy.
Speaker 1 (31:37):
I'm gonna remember that phrase, buckets of joy. It's a
long story, but I have to design a Christmas card
from my mom, so I'm looking for all kinds of ideas.
Speaker 3 (31:47):
Buckets of joy. It's just a bucket, like a sad bucket.
It's sad bucket. Oh I like it. Yeah, I like it.
Speaker 1 (31:58):
And that brings us to the end of this classic episode.
We hope that you enjoyed it as much as we
enjoyed bringing it back.
Speaker 2 (32:05):
Oh yeah, And if you all have any kind of
SPECIALTMAG recipe, if you just have a special holiday recipe
that's really on your mind right now, because maybe you
made it, or maybe you didn't get to make it.
And you're mad or yeah, whatever it is it is,
we would love to hear from you.
Speaker 1 (32:22):
Yes, recipes always welcome. Yes, and if you would like
to contact us, there are many ways to do so.
You can email us at Hello, atsavorpod dot com.
Speaker 2 (32:32):
We're also on social media. You can find us on Twitter,
Blue Sky, Facebook, and Instagram at savor pod and we
do hope to hear from you. Save is production of iHeartRadio.
For more podcasts from my Heart Radio, you can visit
the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to
your favorite shows. Thanks as always to our super producers
Dylan Fagan and Andrew Howard. Thanks to you for listening,
(32:55):
and we hope that lots more good things are coming
your way
Hello, and welcome savor prediction of iHeartRadio. I'm Annie Reese.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
And I'm Lorn Vogelbaum, and today we have a classic
episode for you about nutmeg.
Speaker 3 (00:17):
Yes, oh yeah, what an episode it is?
Speaker 2 (00:20):
Oh yeah, yeah, this is a good, slash weird, one
slash little, it's all those things. It originally aired in
November of twenty eighteen. You might have noticed that all
of our recent classics have been from like the fall
to winter of twenty eighteen, and that's because that's where
I am on our classic rotation list. Yeah that makes sense,
(00:44):
It makes sense here we are.
Speaker 1 (00:46):
And yeah, that make is a very for a lot
of us associated with this time of year, of the
holidays in the US in North America. But people use
it all the time. I got ella a bit of
a bit about it with a friend who was like,
I can't imagine it in savory things.
Speaker 3 (01:05):
Oh really, you.
Speaker 2 (01:09):
Know, yeah, yeah, like a little bit of nutmeg can
set things off in such a lovely way. I mean,
you know, perhaps perhaps obviously I say, somewhat snobbly in
like a like a kind of sausage sort of situation.
I feel like that's one of those gets mixed in
there with with all of those like nice processed meat
products a lot of the time, but also like a
(01:30):
really classic French thing to do is to grate just
a tiny bit of nutmeg over any kind of cream
sauce that you're doing just really sets it off.
Speaker 3 (01:42):
Yeah, that sounds good. That sounds good. Nutmeg.
Speaker 2 (01:47):
It is one of the things that I do to
my like goofy like boxed mac and cheese that I
miss at home to make it taste like food.
Speaker 1 (01:57):
Yes, I'll keep that in mind because my New Year's
tradition now as I eat mac and cheese, okay cool.
I mean I also do the the soup that I've
described before that uses all the Southern traditional things.
Speaker 3 (02:10):
But New Year's Eve, I eat mac and cheese.
Speaker 2 (02:13):
Oh okay, okay, okay, yeah, yeah, so I'll keep that
in mind.
Speaker 3 (02:16):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (02:17):
Yeah, Well I suppose that we should let former Annie
and Lauren take it away.
Speaker 3 (02:33):
Hello, and welcome to Savor. I'm Annie Reach.
Speaker 2 (02:35):
And I'm Lauren Vocal Bomb. And today we're talking about nutmeg.
Speaker 3 (02:38):
Yes, nutmeg, the nuts a nice spice.
Speaker 2 (02:41):
Oh, I mean, it's it's nice in terms of flavor.
Just historically speaking, every spice ever is horrific.
Speaker 3 (02:48):
That's true.
Speaker 1 (02:49):
And I like nutmeg, but I find I almost always
overuse it. Oh, it's a very powerful flavor.
Speaker 2 (02:56):
It's a light touch spice for sure. Yeah, I see,
I love an me like. I will put nutmeg on
just about anything and everything, like say, very.
Speaker 3 (03:03):
Sweet, what have you? But again a light touch mm hmm.
Speaker 1 (03:07):
This was a lesson I had to learn and still
apparently I'm I just have a heavy hand. My mom
has a word for it. I can't remember. Clumsy head.
It's something funny, I'll ask her.
Speaker 3 (03:17):
Yeah, come back.
Speaker 1 (03:18):
But any way, this brings us to our question, and
it's a two parter.
Speaker 3 (03:27):
What is it?
Speaker 1 (03:28):
And what the heck is a pendulous droope?
Speaker 2 (03:36):
Well, and we promise that the pendulous droop thing has
to do with nutmeg.
Speaker 1 (03:41):
Yeah, it's not just some unrelated thing, although I wouldn't
put that past.
Speaker 3 (03:44):
Does a pendulous droop? Okay?
Speaker 2 (03:49):
A droop is a fruit that grows from a single
ovary and contains a single seed or pit think peaches
or plums or olives. And pendulous just means hanging rather
than being like more dire attached to a branch. So yes,
pendulous drup and in some plants, the seed or pit
at hand is good to eat, Like you get almonds
(04:09):
by cracking up in the pit of an almond tree's fruit,
and you get nutmegs by processing a nutmeg trees fruit.
So nutmeg is a spice that comes mostly from a
plant by the botanical name Murstka fragrance. It's a tropical
evergreen tree with glossy, dark green leaves, and all parts
of this plant are fragrant. But the part humans are
(04:31):
mostly concerned.
Speaker 3 (04:32):
With is the fruit.
Speaker 2 (04:34):
These trees grow these yellowish fruits that look a little
bit like apricots. Oh. When they're ripe, the fruit splits
open along its seam, you know, the like the butt
of a peach.
Speaker 3 (04:42):
Yeah, like that seem.
Speaker 2 (04:43):
And it reveals the pit. And these pits look wild, y'all.
It's like something out of a John Carpenter film. Like seriously,
they're like shiny and black and partially covered in this
bright red, fleshy sort of like thick netting. It looks
like Freddy Krueger's face in pit format.
Speaker 1 (05:00):
Well, this is very important for me to know because
I've been on a deep dive of Every Friday, the
Thirteenth movie and Nightmare on Elm Street movie and Halloween Movie.
Speaker 3 (05:10):
It's been a really long Halloween month for me. But
long or fabulous.
Speaker 1 (05:14):
Oh, it's been wonderful. But I didn't know one that
Jason went to New York. He took Manhattan, and then
he went to Hell and that's where he met Freddy, right,
and then he went to Space because the FBI was like,
let's just send him to space.
Speaker 2 (05:27):
Oh that's why he ended up in space.
Speaker 1 (05:29):
Yeah, because there's a secret compound under Crystal Lake. We're
just sputtering nonsense to never seen Friday the thirteenth.
Speaker 3 (05:38):
Let's get back to nutmeg.
Speaker 2 (05:40):
Yes, okay, So if you take this weird Freddy Krueger
looking pit out of the fruit and then scrape off
that red stuff and then crack the pit open.
Speaker 3 (05:49):
Inside you'll find a nutmeg. But you don't want to
do that.
Speaker 2 (05:53):
Like fresh off the tree, these things have to be
dried first, traditionally in hot shaded buildings for up to
two months. And when the nutmeg seed or kernel starts
rattling around and it's pit, it's ready to go. Now,
if you've never seen one hole, nutmeg is a dark
brown and it looks looks a little bit like a
smaller sort of wrinkly pecan in its shell, or like
(06:15):
a sort of bloated almond, like if you just sort
of puffed an almond up full of full of air,
like a balloon. I'm not using any attractive words here,
I'm sorry. It's really not there to be pretty though.
The seed or kernel is just packed dense with all
of these squiggly little layers of food that would have
been used by the seed to grow a new plant.
But as it turns out, if you dry out and
(06:37):
then grind or grate up that seed stuff, it's delicious
to humans too. It's fragrant and warm and woody, with
a little sweetness and a little bite.
Speaker 1 (06:45):
The tree is native to Indonesia's Moluccas aka the Spice Islands,
and that's where a lot of it is cultivated, along
with the Caribbean, and here in the States it's a
popular spice in baked goods, particularly in the fall part
of eggnog. I still top my whisky sours with nutmeg
when I'm feeling fancy, because remember we went to We
(07:06):
went downstairs to a place called eighteen twenty one bitters.
Speaker 2 (07:10):
Oh right, and she did she shaved some nutmeg over
the top of it.
Speaker 3 (07:13):
And it was amazing. It was beautiful. It was amazing.
Speaker 1 (07:15):
It's it's a little sweet and very aromatic, but it's
popular in a huge variety of dishes, from meats to
vegetables to sauces. The spice mace comes from the arrows
that are on the outside of the nutmeg seed.
Speaker 3 (07:28):
Yeah, that bright red netting stuff. That's so cool. Yeah, yeah,
like the more you know, yeah, the more you know.
Speaker 2 (07:37):
Mace is a little more biting and less sweet than nutmeg,
but with an otherwise similar flavor profile. And nutmeg is
still used pretty liberally in Dutch, Tuscan, North African and
Canadian cuisine and provide some warm notes to some French sauces.
Mace is more popular in Indian cuisines. The fruit can
also be eaten and is by some nutmeg farmers and
their communities. It can be eaten fresh with like a
(07:59):
pinch of salt and chili, or dried and sugared, or
made into juice or jam or pickles or wine. And yeah,
all parts of the nutmeg plant taste vaguely of nutmeg.
Speaker 1 (08:08):
Makes sense, The word nutmeg might refer to different seeds
in different countries.
Speaker 3 (08:13):
Just to keep us all on our toes.
Speaker 1 (08:15):
As far as the name goes, it might come from
either an old Arabic word or an old French word
for musk, meaning fragrant, and then possibly the French word
for nut combined with that nut meg.
Speaker 3 (08:28):
And what about nutrition.
Speaker 2 (08:31):
Well, nutmeg, I mean it's a spice. I mean, like
in the amount that you would use it culinarily, it's
pretty much null. But maybe you've hoed that people use
nutmeg non culinarily.
Speaker 3 (08:44):
I don't know what you're talking about. Lauren, Well, you
did some of the research, so I certainly hope you have. Okay,
I did.
Speaker 1 (08:51):
Yeah, you probably heard some interesting things about nutmegs properties. Specifically,
it's psychedelic and hallucinogenic properties. If you consume somewhere around
four to eight teaspoons, nutmeg does have psychoactive effects. The
sensation of floating is what most partakers report experiencing. It
can take a minute for it to hit or not
(09:11):
a minute, a couple of hours, and it could last
four days. It comes with a lot of unpleasant side
effects after vomiting, raising heart diarrhea, and a quote nutmeg
burp every twenty minutes, which I find interesting rarely. Nutmeg poisoning,
which is about twelve teaspoons, can result in palpitations, pain, convulsions,
(09:32):
and possibly death. Some prison kitchens have banned nutmeg for
this reason. Malcolm X even mentioned nutmeg in his autobiography quote,
start into a glass of cold water. A penny matchbox
full of nutmeg had the kick of three or four reefers.
Speaker 3 (09:48):
Huh.
Speaker 1 (09:49):
William S Burrows wrote about it too. Results are vaguely
similar to marijuana, with side effects of headache and nausea.
Death would probably supervene before addiction of such addiction as possible.
Speaker 3 (10:01):
I have only taken nutmeg once.
Speaker 2 (10:03):
Other experimenters have compared a nutmeg high to having a
two day hangover.
Speaker 3 (10:09):
That sounds terrible. I agree. Hmm, Well, what's happening here, Lauren? Okay?
Speaker 2 (10:16):
Nutmeg contains a lot of interesting compounds that give it
it's aroma and flavor. Linna lul brings a sort of
floral spice terrapinol, piny citrus usenol clove, sort of spice
camp fiend. This pungent bite dipentene is lemony and pineine
as well. Piney oh.
Speaker 3 (10:33):
Yeah. For once, words makes sense more or less makes sense.
Speaker 2 (10:38):
But yet nutmeg also contains a few interesting compounds. Maristicin,
named for the nutmeg plant, can suppress the action of
a particular neurotransmitter and thus prevent some of your nerves
from firing. These nerves are responsible for involuntary and voluntary
muscle movement in the in the guts, the lungs, and elsewhere,
(10:59):
and some researchers think that this is why a nutmeg
high makes you feel sluggish, and also why nutmeg has
been used medicinally to treat stuff like gastro intestinal distress,
like it might prevent muscles from cramping in those areas.
It's also a precursor to MMDA, which is a psychedelic amphetamine.
And then there are a couple other compounds elementsin and
(11:21):
saff roll, both of which are psychoactive precursors to MDMA
or ecstasy. And there are all sorts of theories about
how these and other compounds of nutmeg interact with each
other and with your body as they're like broken down
in the digestive system and liver in order to create.
Speaker 1 (11:38):
This high, right, and the chemical behind this whole thing
that maristicin is bad news for dogs, potentially fatal level
bad news.
Speaker 3 (11:48):
Yeah, don't take nutmeg for recreational use. Don't do it. No, no,
do it.
Speaker 2 (11:53):
Also, beware of anything that's selling nutmeg for medicinal use.
It is sold as a treatment for everything from aforementioned
guest or intestinal issues to kidney disease to cancer, but
there is not enough scientific evidence to say whether it
helps with any of those things. However, studies are ongoing.
Research in rats has shown that high doses of nutmeg
(12:14):
oil are more effective than traditional pain medication in helping
ease pain and swelling due to inflammation, the sort of
inflammation seen in arthritis, and with fewer side effects. So
it would be pretty cool if something came out of that,
but does don't go dosing yourself. Like the oil that
they were using was specially formulated to contain less of
the stuff that makes you ill. If you just eat
(12:37):
a lot of nutmeg, you'd get nauseated a long time
before you would see arthritis benefits.
Speaker 1 (12:41):
Yeah, and if we look at numbers, they can be
a little tough to pin down, but estimates put global
nutmeg production between somewhere between ten and twelve thousand metric
tons annually. Indonesia accounts for seventy five percent of that production,
and Granada comes in second with about twenty percent. But
nowadays you can find nutmeg pretty much anywhere and cheaply.
(13:06):
But at one time nutmeg was worth its.
Speaker 3 (13:09):
Weight in gold.
Speaker 1 (13:10):
And then some oh yeah, tens of thousands died in
the fight to control nutmeg yay spices. Yeah yeah, And
we'll get into that after a quick break for word
from our sponsor.
Speaker 3 (13:33):
And we're back. Thank you, sponsors, yes, thank you. All right.
Speaker 1 (13:35):
So nutmeg history. Before it was used for food, nutmeg
was used as an encense or in these small perfume
bags called satchets.
Speaker 2 (13:46):
Supposedly it was part of the spice blend used inside
Egyptian mummies.
Speaker 1 (13:50):
Egyptian mummy spice blend. Why can I not buy that anywhere?
Speaker 2 (13:53):
Oh well, that's our next spice blend. It's true, all right, okay.
Speaker 1 (13:59):
Nouas it was a part of the royal perfume used
in Iran and preserved nutmeg was recorded in China as
early as two hundred CE. Plenty wrote about it in
first century CE. Persian physician Iban Sinna wrote about what
he called the Bonda nut sometime around one thousand CE,
(14:19):
and the Bonda nut is probably.
Speaker 2 (14:22):
Nutmeg Banda is the old term for the island where
it was found.
Speaker 1 (14:27):
Yes, around the same time, Holy Roman Emperor Henry the
sixth had the streets fumigated with nutmegs in honor of
his coronation.
Speaker 3 (14:38):
Oh that sounds delightful, it does.
Speaker 1 (14:41):
Records show that had made it all the way out
to Byzantem by sixth century CE, and there are records
describing a sprinkling of nutmeg on peace pudding old episode
throwback dating back to the eighth century, lots of innisul use.
Going on to records show that Europeans were using it
as a cure for nervous ailments by the seventh century.
Speaker 3 (15:01):
And we say all the way out.
Speaker 1 (15:04):
Because for centuries you could only find it on this
one isolated island chain, the Bonda Islands, of which yeah,
there are ten of them. Arab traders were the first
outsiders to discover nutmeg, and they charged a fortune for it.
When the Turks seized control of Constantinople which is modern
day Istanbul, in fourteen fifty three, they cut off trade
(15:27):
on the one strip of land that had allowed some
merchants to bypass the Arab Venetian trade monopoly because at
the time Arab traders sold to Europe through Venice. Columbus
was looking for a shortcut to the Spice Islands to
get around this whole mess when he stumbled on the
Americas instead. When Vasco de Gama's forces laid siege to
(15:49):
Kerala in fourteen ninety seven, his soldiers cried for.
Speaker 3 (15:53):
Christ and spices.
Speaker 1 (15:56):
This is destiny of the world stuff we're talking about here.
I did buy the search for nutmeg. The Benedictine abbess
Hildegarde de Bengen wrote about nutmeg's psychoactive properties all the
way back in twelfth century CE, so we humans have
known something was up with nutmeg for a while, and
because of its rarity, nutmeg was super expensive. German records
(16:21):
from the fourteenth century list the price for a pound
of nutmeg at seven fat oxen.
Speaker 3 (16:27):
Not skinny oxen, No fat oxen. Yeah, like good ones.
Something else.
Speaker 1 (16:32):
I ran across claimed that at one point in England,
selling a handful of nutmeg nuts would set you up
for life. Never had work again. The nutmeg situation changed
in fifteen eleven when Portuguese conquer a Fonso de Albuquerque
captured the Moluccas and demanded that the indigenous islanders lead
him to the source of the nutmeg, which they did.
(16:53):
Both The local successfully kept the Portuguese from occupying the
Banda Islands and eventually drove the Portuese. Also wanted to
mention that Leonardo da Vinci's fifteen to ten packing list
read inkorn, penknife, get hold of skull, nutmeg. That sounds
(17:13):
like how a lot of my list shape.
Speaker 3 (17:16):
I want to hang out with Leo so hard, get
hold of get hold of a skull, period a nutmeg,
I agree, dude.
Speaker 1 (17:27):
And this is around the time when nutmeg star really
started to rise. Spices were all a rage among the
rich because they were the only ones who could afford them. Really,
they might have been using it for its hallucinogenic properties
as well and also medicinally just as much as for food.
Some believed that nutmeg could keep away not only the
(17:49):
common cold, but also the bubonic plague.
Speaker 3 (17:53):
It could not. No.
Speaker 1 (17:54):
No, science has shown that fleas appear to really dislike
the smell of nutmeg, soo. The leading European medical institution
during the Middle Ages, the Salerno School, had this to
say about nutmeg. One nut is good for you, the
second will do you harm, the third will kill you.
(18:14):
And it was seen as an affrodisiac guys obviously.
Speaker 3 (18:17):
Of course, of course, also thought to relieve sleeplessness, poison bites,
and flatulence. Oh sure, Yeah.
Speaker 2 (18:26):
And then there's also a rumor that Nostrodamus was taking
a lot of it and other miled to hallucinogens like
it while he was writing up his prophecies.
Speaker 3 (18:35):
Oh so that's where they came from. Yeah, and thanks
to producer Dylan for that hot tip. Yes, I love
this too.
Speaker 1 (18:43):
Some rich French chefs would get these really fancy nutmeg
graders made and they would show them off at fancy
dinner parties. Like if someone was like, oh, I've only
had a way to grate this nutmeg.
Speaker 3 (18:54):
It'd be like, oh, I have a way. I love it.
Speaker 1 (18:59):
I want to carry o a pline apple and a
fancy nutmeg greater.
Speaker 3 (19:04):
Yeah, people will never invite me to parties again. Oh okay,
I would.
Speaker 2 (19:09):
I think that if I think you don't want to
hang out with those people anyway.
Speaker 3 (19:13):
You're right, Lauren, You're always full of such good advice.
Speaker 1 (19:17):
Okay, so now we need to talk about the Dutch
East India Company because they really wanted a monopoly on
the nutmeg trade. To that end, they went to the Bondanese,
forcing them to trade nutmeg for Dutch goods that the
Bondanese didn't need, like thick, heavy clothing. They were in
the tropics, they had no need for that kind of stuff.
And they also forced the Bondanese rulers to sign quote
(19:39):
the Eternal Treaty in sixteen oh nine, which secured the
Dutch East India Company's spice trade monopoly on the islands.
And things escalated after that when the Bondas attacked the
fortress the Dutch had built in the region, Fort Nassau.
They killed the admiral and forty of his officers. At
(20:00):
the same time, the British were doing their best to
chip away at the duchess hold on the spice trade
and the Spice Islands. They managed to secure two small
Banda islands, Run and I. Run was the first British
colony in the world, but the Dutch fought tooth and nail,
and in sixteen fifteen they attacked the British controlled Spice Islands.
(20:22):
The British lost control of Eye but solidified their forces
on run and killed two hundred of the Dutchess soldiers.
The British forces were able to reclaim I, but about
a year later the Dutch attacked them again, and when
the British used up all of their AMMO, the Dutch
massacred them. Oh Determined to take full control of the Bondas,
(20:42):
the Dutch East India Company dispatched soldiers to the islands
who used alleged violations to this eternal Treaty as justification
for beheading forty indigenous leaders. And if that wasn't terrible enough,
they then committed genocide against the Bondas history or in estimate,
the population went from around fifteen thousand to around one thousand.
(21:06):
Any mail over the age of fifteen was quartered and beheaded.
The survivors were then enslaved and used to cultivate nutmeg.
A decade and a half later, the population had dropped
even lower to six hundred. Oh my goodness, and all
of these horrible acts made Dutch plantation owners filthy rich.
(21:27):
They sold nutmeg at a markup of three hundred times
in Europe. The Dutch East India Company was the richest
company in the world. Each year, shareholders got a forty
percent dividend, and the company employed over fifty thousand people
and ten thousand soldiers across two hundred ships. To get
more product, they brought in slaves from other Indonesian islands
(21:49):
like Java. Meanwhile, the English and French tried to circumvent
the Dutch's control of nutmeg with subterfuge to get their
hands on fertile nutmeg seeds. To prevent this, nutmeg seeds
were coated in lime so they wouldn't sprout. The export
of nutmeg growing trees was banned, and anyone suspected of growing, stealing,
(22:10):
or selling nutmeg outside of Dutch approval faced the death penalty.
Speaker 2 (22:15):
And that lime thing was so prevalent for so long
that even after the monopoly fell, producers would continue to
bleach nutmegs for like a good long while because according
to consumers, that's what nutmegs looks like.
Speaker 3 (22:26):
Oh my goodness.
Speaker 1 (22:28):
And then Peter Piper got involved. Of course, he's always
popping up everywhere.
Speaker 2 (22:35):
Peter Piper, Like Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers.
Speaker 3 (22:39):
Yeah, fame that one, yep, that one. He's a real guy.
He was a real dude.
Speaker 1 (22:45):
His actual name was Pierre Poavre, which translated to English
comes out to be Peter Piper. He wore many hats,
a pirate's hat, a horticulturist hat. I guess that's a
gardened cap, and he also had lost one of his arms.
At the time, Pepper referred to all kinds of spice nuts,
so nutmeg peppers relevant here. Pierre stole all kinds of
(23:08):
things from the Dutch for his garden, including nutmeg. Because
of him, France was able to plant some nutmeg seeds
on their colony of Mauritius. And this brings us to
the question did the Dutch really trade the island of
Manhattan for nutmeg? Before we answer that, we're gonna pause
(23:29):
for one more quick break for word from our sponsor,
and we're back. Thank you, sponsor, Yes, thank you, all right,
So let's answer this question. It's a popular cocktail type, Oh,
surely a question. After centuries of bloodshed and warring of
(23:52):
her territory, the Dutch Anglo War had just ended. The
British and the Dutch were looking to cool things down
a bit. In sixteen sixty seven, they entered negotiations. The
British wanted new Amsterdam or Manhattan, and the Dutch wanted
Britain's last nutmeg producing island, Bonda Run and a South
(24:14):
American sugar producing territory. Is like the cherry on top
on what they won both of those things. The Treaty
of Breda was signed and the exchange was made, and
soul was history.
Speaker 3 (24:25):
So the answer is yes, yeah, kind kind of m hm.
Speaker 1 (24:29):
New Amsterdam, by the way, was discovered by English explorer
Henry Hudson, who was commissioned by the Dutch East India
Company to find a northeast passage from Asia to the
Arctic Ocean. He didn't, but he did find Long Island,
and that's where the name of the Hudson River comes from.
The Dutch purportedly traded items valued at around twenty four
(24:51):
dollars to the tribe they found on Manhattan Island. The
tribe didn't really live there though, and that they called
it quote a place where we all got drunk or
mena HACTINUK. Sorry if I butchered that, but yeah, because
that's another thing you'll hear a lot in that conversation
is twenty four dollars.
Speaker 3 (25:10):
That's where that comes from.
Speaker 1 (25:11):
Okay, so about a century and a half goes by,
with the Dutch maintaining total control.
Speaker 3 (25:16):
Of the nutmeg trade.
Speaker 1 (25:18):
Then comes the Napoleonic Wars from eighteen oh three to
eighteen fifteen, pitting the Dutch, which is now at this
time part of Napoleon's Empire, against the English again. So
the British went straight for the Spice Islands. They launched
an attack against one of the Bunda Islands in eighteen
ten and the Dutch lost their fort Nassau. But when
(25:40):
the first phase of the Napoleonic Wars ended in eighteen fourteen,
control went back to the Dutch with the First Treaty
of Paris. But the British had nutmeg seeds now seeds
that they planted on their tropical colonial outposts like Singapore,
Malaysia and Sri Lanka, and nutmeg spread from there, causing
the price to drop dramatically. Regular folks in Europe and
(26:03):
Asia could afford it, and they started incorporating it into
their cuisine. British controlled Granada went on to become the
second largest producer of nutmeg, and to this day their
flag has the shape of a nutmeg on it, and
folks were still looking to use it for other things
other than eating. During the nineteenth century, women looking to
induce a miscarriage would ingest large quantities of nutmeg. And
(26:28):
here's some slightly more modern day trivia. Apparently Connecticut is
known as the nutmeg State.
Speaker 3 (26:34):
That was news to me me.
Speaker 2 (26:36):
As well, I don't particularly associate. I mean, it doesn't
grow there, right, I mean unless you have a hot house.
Speaker 1 (26:42):
I suppose any listeners who have a hot house growing
nutmeg in Connecticut, please, yeah.
Speaker 3 (26:48):
Send pictures.
Speaker 1 (26:50):
There are two reasons given for why Connecticut has this nickname.
One goes that some sneaky merchants in the state would
carve these little wooden nutmegs and sell them as the
real deal.
Speaker 3 (27:03):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (27:04):
The second story takes a nicer look at these merchants,
suggesting that folks didn't realize nutmeg wouldn't crack open the
same way a walnut wood and that you needed to
grade it instead, and concluded that the entire seed was
composed of wood.
Speaker 2 (27:18):
Yeah, oh man, how disappointing. Oh like to like greate
what you think is a nutmeg and it's just sawdust
And then you're like, oh.
Speaker 3 (27:26):
He probably paid a lot for it, Like a lot.
Speaker 2 (27:29):
This practice occurred back in England as well, and led
to a slang use of the word nutmeg. In Victorian times,
to be nutmegged was to be tricked in a way
that made you look and feel foolish.
Speaker 3 (27:40):
Oh, I kind of love it.
Speaker 2 (27:42):
Yeah, And that slang in turn may have led to
the sports term nutmeg. In football, soccer, or hockey or
other games, a nutmeg is when you hawk the ball
between an opponent's legs.
Speaker 3 (27:54):
I didn't know that. Yeah, I love it. That's yeah,
that's pretty fantastic.
Speaker 2 (28:00):
And yeah, some more modern history. By the twentieth century,
further reductions in prices garnered a greater demand and availability
of nutmeg through the nineteen seventies, until an oversaturated market
dropped prices even more in the nineteen eighties, leading to
the formation of a cartel among the Indonesian and Grenadan
producers that set minimum prices, but producers from both countries
(28:24):
pretty much immediately tried to undercut those prices, so it
wasn't a really successful cartel. And part of the issue
here was the Cold War. That Cold War, because the
nineteen eighties was when the US forcibly removed the Marxist
government from Granada. Ending the country's nutmeg profitable ties to Russia.
Whether or not Russia was there for the nutmeg or
(28:46):
there for the location in the Caribbean as a outpost
closed to the US. I mean, you can decide for yourself.
But on a visit to Granada in nineteen eighty six,
President Reagan a pair joked that the Russians and Cubans
had mostly wanted Granada for the nutmeg. Like he was like, oh,
Laul's that's such a funny idea quote. What they were
(29:07):
really after was Christmas.
Speaker 3 (29:09):
I'm sure it killed at the time. I'm positive it did.
Speaker 2 (29:14):
But the thing that I find interesting about this entire
Cold War bit is that in the late eighties and
early nineties it became trendy again to buy whole nutmegs
and grate them fresh at home instead of buying pre
ground nutmeg, which is what had been available in supermarkets
for the past few decades. And this might be a
direct result of marketing done by Americans who were attempting
(29:34):
to fix Granada's economy after they cut ties to Russia.
Speaker 3 (29:38):
That is interesting, huh, Like, I can't prove it one
way or another, but like the tie is there? Mm hm. Anyway.
Speaker 2 (29:45):
Yeah, today, in the Caribbean, in particular, small farms like
the nutmeg farms on Granada are a really great source
of jobs and businesses and are thought to be like good,
steady supplements to the tourism industry that dominates so much
of the area. But climate change and the increasing number
and intensity of hurricanes is making life harder for folks
in agriculture there.
Speaker 3 (30:05):
Yeah, this one had a lot of Yeah.
Speaker 2 (30:10):
I don't really have like a positive like thing ending
for that one. I'm like, oh, man, I still really
like nutmeg.
Speaker 3 (30:16):
Oh that's harsh.
Speaker 1 (30:20):
Yeah, And I think as this comes out as it airs,
except we don't really air.
Speaker 3 (30:27):
They has this radio.
Speaker 2 (30:28):
Well like sure, no, I mean the sound waves move
through air to get to your ears.
Speaker 3 (30:35):
Well, yeah, as it's released.
Speaker 1 (30:38):
It is the holiday season and nutmeg is everywhere.
Speaker 3 (30:45):
It's probably in your pumpkin spice mix. Oh sure. Yeah.
And we've mentioned before, I think last year around this time,
coworker Alex he makes eggnog from George Washington's original recipe
and it's delicious. Artha Washington's original recipe, right, oh, thank you.
Speaker 2 (31:02):
No, no problem, It's I do it all for Martha.
Speaker 3 (31:07):
As you should, but I know that.
Speaker 1 (31:09):
I think last year I put a lot of nutmeg
on top of mine and it was lovely.
Speaker 3 (31:13):
It's worthwhile, it is, Oh it is.
Speaker 1 (31:16):
But this year I hope I don't drink too much
nutmeg because there is a lot of alcohol in this
Washington recipe by the way. Oh yeah, and then tell
everyone about Nutmeg's terrible pass. That sounds like something I
will do.
Speaker 3 (31:27):
Oh, that sounds like something both of us will do.
We're so fun. Yeah, we're buckets of joy.
Speaker 1 (31:37):
I'm gonna remember that phrase, buckets of joy. It's a
long story, but I have to design a Christmas card
from my mom, so I'm looking for all kinds of ideas.
Speaker 3 (31:47):
Buckets of joy. It's just a bucket, like a sad bucket.
It's sad bucket. Oh I like it. Yeah, I like it.
Speaker 1 (31:58):
And that brings us to the end of this classic episode.
We hope that you enjoyed it as much as we
enjoyed bringing it back.
Speaker 2 (32:05):
Oh yeah, And if you all have any kind of
SPECIALTMAG recipe, if you just have a special holiday recipe
that's really on your mind right now, because maybe you
made it, or maybe you didn't get to make it.
And you're mad or yeah, whatever it is it is,
we would love to hear from you.
Speaker 1 (32:22):
Yes, recipes always welcome. Yes, and if you would like
to contact us, there are many ways to do so.
You can email us at Hello, atsavorpod dot com.
Speaker 2 (32:32):
We're also on social media. You can find us on Twitter,
Blue Sky, Facebook, and Instagram at savor pod and we
do hope to hear from you. Save is production of iHeartRadio.
For more podcasts from my Heart Radio, you can visit
the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to
your favorite shows. Thanks as always to our super producers
Dylan Fagan and Andrew Howard. Thanks to you for listening,
(32:55):
and we hope that lots more good things are coming
your way
Savor News
Hosts And Creators
Anney Reese
Lauren Vogelbaum
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