Mace (Ground)

PURPOSE

WHAT IS IT?

The nutmeg fruit is light yellow, with red and green markings, resembling an apricot or a large plum. As the fruit matures, the outer fleshy covering which also is eaten, often candied, or pickled, bursts to reveal the nutmeg seed. The seed is covered with a red membrane called an aril, the mace portion of the nutmeg. It is removed, dried, and ground.

EXPERIENCE

The older sister to nutmeg, mace has a bright, warm flavor reminiscent of nutmeg, but you’ll notice that it’s significantly stronger. The delicate aril also boasts potent citrus, clove, and floral aromas, a gentle allspice reminder, that play nicely with other baking spices such as cinnamon, and cardamom.

CULINARY GEOGRAPHY

The nutmeg tree originates in Banda, from the island of Molucca, the largest of the Spice Islands of Indonesia. Mace/Nutmeg is also grown in Malaysia, Thailand, India, the Philippines, and China, with a small amount being cultivated in Jamaica, and other parts of the Caribbean.

TRADITIONAL USES

• Mace cake;
• Used in any nutmeg recipe, in smaller quantities;
• Game pie;
• Port and Claret Jelly

A FEW IMPROVISATIONAL RIFFS:

• A wonderful aromatic for my Journey Cake (Johnnycake);
• My Gingerbread Ice Cream gets more lift from mace than nutmeg;

THE BACKSTORY

In 1760, the price of nutmeg in London was 85 to 90 shillings per pound, a price kept artificially high by the Dutch, who voluntarily burned full warehouses of nutmegs in Amsterdam to set the price. The Dutch held control of the spice islands until World War II.  A cheaper substitute was found in the discarded husks, the aril, which was dried, and sold for far less, as “mace.”

AKA

• Basbasa
• Fuljan
• Fleur de muscade
• Macis
• Muskatblüte
• जावित्री
• Javitri
• Sekar pala, Fuli
• වසාවාසි
• Vasa-vasi

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