Nutmeg and mace are two of those mysterious spices that are really, unusual in where they come from. They also have many strange stories attached to them – they used to be thought of as part of a cure for the plague and are reputed to be a key ingredient of Coca-Cola as well as being mildy hallucinogenic. I have collected together some photos (of varying degrees of quality) to show some of the parts to this story.
Nutmeg is a tree that grows a sweet fruit a bit like a cross between and apricot and a mango. The outer flesh is used for making jams and chutneys.
Nutmeg Tree
Nutmeg Fruit With Mace Showing Through
Nutmeg Fruit Cut Open With Mace Blades
The nutmeg is picked and the mace threads are taken from the outside of the nutmeg shell, and dried to get the mace.
Nutmeg, Mace And Cocoa Beans
The nutmeg is the seed that is within the shell; a bit like an almond or brazil nut within its outer shell. The shells are broken and the nutmeg removed and dried on drying racks.
Nutmeg On Drying Racks
After drying the nutmegs are sorted and graded by hand, then stored in hessian sacks, or other sacks that allow the nutmegs to breathe to prevent them becoming mouldy.
Sorting Through Nutmeg By Hand
Sorting Nutmeg
Hessian Sacks Full Of Nutmeg
They are then shipped from source in Indonesia, Grenada or Sri Lanka to spice merchants around the world for use in food manufacturing, creating food flavours or packing as spices – whether whole or in powder form.
Packing Nutmeg At Steenbergs Spices
Tags: Blog, cooking, Fairtrade spices, foodie, foodie news, mace, nutmeg, spice, spices, Steenbergs, Steenbergs spices
That is very very interesting. I have just gone straight to the bottom of the foodie class as I did not know that nutmeg and mace came from the same fruit.
Do you pack all your own label on site?
We do all our own blends and pack all our spice, herbs and seasoning mixes on site. We also mix our own loose leaf teas and pack them on site. The only things we don’t do are the extracts themslves where we get a partner to do the wet work using our ingredients then we pack them back in our factory, i.e. we source and import the vanilla but someone else handles all the extraction process and then they send it back to us.
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cherry blossom trees…
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