Sailors would catch the scent of spice on the wind before they could see land. A string of emerald isles, as remote as any you can imagine, was once the only place on earth that nutmeg grew.
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The Banda Sea stretches through the Indonesian province of Maluku, 1500 miles east of Jakarta. Here, lying just south of the equator, are 10 tiny volcanic islands ringed by turquoise water. Indeed, one called Gunung Api or "Fire Mountain" is a volcano in its entirety, which has been known to splutter and stream molten lava, causing the surrounding sea to boil. The ocean winds, salty tropical rains and fertile volcanic soil combine to create the perfect habitat for the evergreen nutmeg trees that gave the Banda Islands their moniker, the Spice Islands.
At the heart of the dusky, yellow nutmeg fruit is the prized seed at the centre of the spice trade. Around it grows a lacy red wrapping, mace, a sister spice with a floral edge. Along with cloves, another Maluku native, and a clutch of other Indian Ocean spices, these exotic commodities, now commonplace the world over, once elicited such lustful excitement that a sea trade developed that changed the course of history and the food of today.
What unites Indian garam masala, Lebanese seven spice, French quatre épices, Moroccan ras el hanout and Middle Eastern baharat? It is nutmeg, which lends its bittersweet, fragrant warmth to them all. From its remote island home, this wrinkly seed has found its place at the centre of the world's best-known spice blends. You can detect nutmeg enlivening Chinese five spice, Ethiopian berbere, Jamaican jerk seasonings, even Coca Cola's secret recipe. National dishes are transformed by it: American apple pie, German Christmas biscuits, Greek moussaka. It is clear that this unassuming seed holds us all in its thrall.
Nutmeg is not alone. Sweet curls of cinnamon bark found their way from Sri Lanka into perfumed pilaus in the Middle East. Cumin crossed from the Mediterranean to become the essential base note in almost every Indian curry. Indian peppercorns joined salt as the stalwarts of the Western dining table and star anise travelled south from China to give its liquorice accent to broths across South East Asia.
Spice's legacy is sweeter than its history. The saga is eventually one of greed, monopolies, empire and colonisation. After all, fortunes were made, blood spilt, maps redrawn and the New World discovered all because of a desire for spice.
From our very earliest history, people have travelled the spice routes. So broad reaching as to seem intangible, these maritime trading trails and the later overland routes, known as the Silk Road, acted as the central nervous system of the world, enabling the human-propelled flow of goods. At first, this was short distances from home ports, but in time the immense rewards of trade lured sailors to brave longer journeys. Four thousand years ago, Asian spices had found their way to the Middle East. It was not only spices; bolts of silk, ivory and tortoiseshell, delicate porcelain, metals, bullion and cases of jewels crisscrossed the world, bringing great profits to those prepared to risk the treacherous seas. With them travelled knowledge and ideas: science, religion, language, craftsmanship, expertise, cookery. Traders broke up long journeys, staying in entrepots where they would pick up customs, exchange ideas and influence local cuisines.
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The value and allure of spices only grew, their exotic strangeness bestowing mystical, medicinal and spiritual values. They were stirred into potions, added to food, used as tonics and aphrodisiacs and burnt into clouds of incense to sweeten the air and carry prayers heavenwards.
Spice merchants wove fantastical tales of dragons, phoenixes and fearsome serpents to create a sense of mystery around the origin of their wares. Prices escalated and at one time, nutmeg was worth more than its weight in gold.
With commodities in such high demand, there was great wealth to be had for those who controlled them. Trade that had been largely peaceful for millennia under the Malays, Chinese, Phoenicians, Romans, Greeks, Persians, Arabs, Jews and Indians descended to devastating battles when the Europeans started seizing control from the fifteenth century. Encounters between the Portuguese, Dutch, Spanish, French and British spiralled into monopolies, imperialism and war. The spice trade laid the foundation for the modern world. It opened the first era of globalisation, an Age of Discovery, and was the trigger for colonialism.
Our collective memory weighs heavy from the suffering inflicted in the name of spice. I want to acknowledge the human cost of the trade; colonialism led to the negation of cultures, exploitation of economies and oppression of many peoples' autonomies. It is important to recognise the wounds of the past and the scars left behind, for spices have a cost that is still being paid today, both in terms of literal extraction and broader societal damage.
Cooking with spice cannot be neutral, not only literally, but because the weight of history, collaboration, domination, mysticism, social status and desire is rooted in every cardamom pod and blade of mace.
Spices have brought humans great pleasure and health, but also aroused intense greed and barbarity. This book journeys into both culinary imperialism and international collaboration, exploring how, all across the world, centuries of trade and cultural diffusion changed the way we are, the way we think and the way we eat. Because of the spice trade, ingredients came together in new ways, and the same ingredients, when married with different techniques and traditions, gave rise to new, intriguing, exciting, often electrifying flavours. Every cuisine is constantly in a process of assimilation and revision, and so our food is intricately interwoven with our history.
It is a story as bittersweet as nutmeg.
- This is an extract from The Nutmeg Trail, by Eleanor Ford. Murdoch Books. $49.99.
Balinese green bean urap
Indonesian cuisine has arguably been made less distinctive by thousands of years at the heart of a trade hub. Even national dishes show external influences, from Chinese-inspired nasi goreng to the Indian sway on Sumatra's celebrated curries. Urap, however, is a dish uniquely of its home. At its simplest, cooked greens are tossed with fried shallots, garlic and coconut, with a zingy spritz of lime juice to brighten the flavours. Here is a more complexly spiced version based on one I was taught by a wonderful cook and mentor, Dayu Putu, in Bali. The archipelago is home to many varieties of pepper, from the tailed cubeb to smoky Lampong peppercorns. They were a key feature of early Indonesian cookery but were largely knocked out of use by chilli. This dish is a throwback, which features both floral long pepper in the spice paste and grassy green peppercorns punctuating the salad. It is a true vegetal celebration and is particularly good served alongside chicken sate.
Ingredients
400g (14oz) green beans
200g (4 cups) baby spinach leaves
4 tbsp neutral oil
6 small shallots, sliced
4 garlic cloves, sliced
100g (1 cup) grated coconut or rehydrated desiccated coconut
1 sprig fresh green peppercorns (2 tsp)
1 lime leaf, deveined and finely sliced
Juice and zest of 1/2 a lime
For the spice paste
6 garlic cloves, peeled
6 shallots, peeled
2cm (3/4 inch) ginger, peeled
2cm (3/4 inch) galangal, skin scrubbed (2 tsp grated)
2cm (3/4 inch) fresh turmeric, peeled, or 1/2 tsp ground turmeric
2 bird's eye chillies
1 tsp coriander seeds
1 long pepper or 1/2 tsp black peppercorns, crushed
Grating of nutmeg
Method
- In salted water, boil the beans for two to three minutes until tender-crisp. Put the spinach leaves in the colander and pour the beans and their boiling water over to drain, wilting the leaves in the process. Toss with a spoon and squeeze out as much liquid as possible.
- Heat a wok or small frying pan, add 2 tbsp of the oil and fry the sliced shallots and garlic until pale golden. Drain on kitchen paper.
- Make the spice paste. Roughly chop all the ingredients and grind to a paste in a food processor, adding a good splash of water. Heat the remaining 2 tbsp of oil in the wok or pan and fry the paste, stirring often, for five to 10 minutes until sweetly fragrant, the water has cooked away and the oil is beginning to separate.
- In a large bowl, mix the grated coconut with the spice paste to make a sunny-coloured rubble. Season with salt. Add the other elements: the green beans, spinach, fried garlic and shallot, green peppercorns and lime leaf. Add the lime zest and juice and use your hands to toss and rub everything together. Serve at room temperature.
Serves 4 (or more as a side).
Griddled pita stuffed with sumac-spiced meat
A wonderful addition to the kebab culinary canon and a reversal of the usual order of things, as meat is wedged into pita bread before being griddled. In Arabic, arayes means "brides" and here she is the delicately spiced filling, enveloped in the arms of her groom, the bread. The marriage is undeniably burger-like but even quicker to prepare and with enticing sour and smoky notes from the sumac and paprika.
These kebabs work well made in advance and packed up to cook on a campfire, if you are that way inclined.
Ingredients
450g (1lb) beef or lamb mince
1 heaped tbsp tomato paste (concentrated purée)
1 heaped tbsp pine nuts, toasted
1 heaped tsp ground sumac
1 heaped teaspoon smoked paprika
3/4 tsp ground allspice
3/4 tsp fine sea salt
3 tbsp finely chopped parsley
4 large pita breads
Olive oil, for brushing
Pomegranate molasses, to serve
Method
- Mix together the minced meat, tomato paste, pine nuts, spices, salt and parsley.
- Cut the pita breads down one side and spread the filling in each in a thin and even layer. Brush the outsides with olive oil.
- Heat a griddle pan to medium-high. Grill the pitas, pressing down with a spatula and flipping occasionally. A quarter turn in the pan will give you crisscross markings. They will probably take about eight to 10 minutes in total, depending on your bread and how rare you like your meat. The pita should be well toasted and the meat cooked to a juicy pink or well done.
- Serve drizzled with pomegranate molasses.
- Eat with crunchy salad with tomatoes, herbs and perhaps a tahini dressing. You can make one by mixing Greek-style (strained) yoghurt with a minced garlic clove, a few spoonfuls of tahini and seasoning with salt.
Serves 4
Turkish winter vegetables
Turlu comes from the old Turkic word for "assortment", reflecting that this dish is made with a medley of vegetables, sometimes with the addition of meat. Traditionally they are baked together in a clay pot, though I like to roast them spread out, allowing the flavours to concentrate and sweeten in the heat of the oven. This is a beautiful display of spicing, a gentle dance of floral coriander seeds, smoky pul biber and sweet warmth from cinnamon and allspice.
Ingredients
1 eggplant
300g (101/2 oz) squash, seeds removed
1 onion, peeled
2 potatoes, scrubbed
3 carrots, scrubbed
2 celery stalks
6 garlic cloves, peeled
3 tbsp olive oil
2 tsp coriander seeds
2 tsp pul biber
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground allspice
250ml (1 cup) tomato passata (puréed tomatoes)
175g (6oz) cooked chickpeas, from a jar or tin
Parsley, mint and dill, to serve
Method
- Heat the oven to 210°C (410°F).
- Cut the eggplant, squash and onion into wedges of similar size. Cut the potatoes into 2cm (3/4 inch) cubes. Thickly slice the carrots, celery and garlic. Put all the vegetables into a large bowl and toss with the olive oil, spices, salt and pepper. Transfer to two large roasting trays - they should lie well-spaced in a single layer so they roast rather than steam.
- Roast for around 45 minutes, gently shuffling the vegetables in the tray halfway through and swapping the trays in the oven. When everything is tender with crisp and charred bits at the edges, tip all the vegetables onto one of the trays. Season the passata and gently stir through the vegetables along with the chickpeas. Return to the oven for 10 minutes.
- Tumble onto a serving dish, sprinkling with more salt and pepper if needed, along with a very generous scattering of the fresh herbs.
- Eat with lamb roasted with cumin or as a vegetarian main course with seasoned yoghurt.
Serves 4 as a substantial side.
Venetian chicken with almond milk and dates
The Persian and Arab fondness for using sugar, spice and ground almonds in savoury dishes spread both east, notably to Indian Mughal cuisine, and west to Medieval European cookery. This recipe is based on one handwritten in a 14th-century cookbook from Venice. At the time, the city lay at the end of the fabled spice route, the European hub of spices and silks arriving from the east. Just as Venetian art and architecture drew on Islamic influence, so too does this sweetly spiced braise.
A heavy hand with spice continued for centuries in northern Italy and the Renaissance chef Cristoforo di Messisbugo included spices in almost every recipe. A ravioli dish for 10 used a heady ounce of cinnamon and half-an-ounce of ground ginger. There was little distinction between sweet and savoury, dishes freely mingling together and pasta doused in sugar and scented with cloves, pepper and saffron. This recipe has only a gentle sweetness and stands the test of time.
Ingredients
8 skin-on, bone-in chicken thighs
1 tbsp plain flour
3 tbsp olive oil
2 small onions, finely chopped
60g (2oz) ginger, peeled and finely chopped
4 garlic cloves, finely chopped
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp freshly grated nutmeg
1/2 tsp ground coriander
Pinch of ground cloves
2 bay leaves
400ml (1 1/2 cups) unsweetened almond milk
2 tbsp verjuice
Pinch of saffron strands
2 tbsp date syrup
4 medjool dates, stoned and quartered
2 tbsp toasted almond flakes
Handful coriander (cilantro) leaves
Rice or polenta, to serve (optional)
Method
- Season the chicken thighs generously with salt and pepper, then dust with the flour. Set a large casserole pan over a medium-high heat and when hot, pour in the olive oil. Add the chicken thighs and brown to a deep golden on all sides. Remove to a plate, leaving the oil behind.
- Add the onion to the pan and cook to soften but not colour. Stir in the ginger, garlic, spices and bay leaves and cook for a few minutes until fragrant. Return the chicken to the pan in a single layer.
- Pour in the almond milk and verjuice, scrunch in the strands of saffron and add the date syrup and dates. Season with salt. Bring to a bubble, then lower the heat and simmer for one hour. The chicken should be tender and falling from the bone.
- Remove the chicken with a slotted spoon and turn up the heat. Bubble the sauce until it has reduced and thickened. Taste for seasoning and adjust. Serve the chicken in the sauce, scattered with almonds and coriander, alongside rice or polenta.
Serves 4.
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