Rensselaer Union, Volume 7, Number 4, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 15 October 1874 — Origin of the Spices. [ARTICLE]

Origin of the Spices.

Nutmeg is the kernel of a small, smooth, pear-shaped fruit that grows on a tree in the Molucca Islands and other parts of the East. The trees commence bearing in their seventh year, and continue fruitful until they are seventy or eighty years old. Around the nutmeg, or kernel, is a bright brown shell. This shell has a soft scarlet covering, which, when flattened arid dried, is known as mace. The best nutmegs are solid, and emit oil when pricked with a pin. Ginger is the root of a shrub first known in Asia, and now cultivated in the West Indies and Sierra Leone. The stem grows three or four feet high, and dies every year. There are two varieties of ginger—the white and black —caused by taking more or less care in selecting and preparing the roots, which are always dug in winter, when the stems are withered. The white is the best. Cinnamon is the inner bark of a beautifuT tree, a native of Ceylon, that grows from twenty to thirty feet in height, and lives to be centuries old. Cloves —native to the Molucca Islands, and so called from resemblance to a nail (clavis). The East Indians call them “ changkek,” from the Chinese “ techengkia” (fragrant nails). They grow on a straight, smooth-barked tree about forty feet high. Cloves are not fruits, but blossoms, gathered before they are quite unfolded. Allspice—a berry so-called because it combines the odor of several spices—grows abundantly on the beautiful allspice or bayberry tree, native of South America and the West Indies. A single tree has been known to produce 150 pounds of berries. They are purple when ripe. Black pepper is made by grinding the dried berry of a climbing vine, native to the East Indies. White pepper is obtained from the same berries freed from their husk or rind. Red or cayenne pepper is obtained by grinding the scarlet pod or seed vessel of a tropical plant that is now cultivated in alLparts of the world.