Bittersweet Legacy of the Bandanese People

December 24, 2024 7:11 PM

NUTMEG: The Horrible History Behind The Popular Spice is a great documentary about a holiday staple. Travel along with Jared Rydelek to the long-secret origin of Myristica fragrans, with many stops along the way. Touching on colonialism, displacement, cultural preservation, culinary innovation, medical history, and much more, this nearly two hour long video will inevitably show you something you didn’t know about before, and maybe inspire you to appreciate your next curry or seasonal beverage even more.
posted by Mizu (6 comments total)

I just want to say I was at a bar recently and they were shaving nutmeg onto a drink, we chatted about it and the bartender gave me the remainder of the nutmeg he was using. My friend asked me what it was, I said a nutmeg and gave it to her, and she immediately tried to eat it whole. She thought it was "a treat" but soon found out otherwise. That's all except that we laughed and laughed. There is another story about its hallucinogenic qualities but it is not mine to tell.

Thanks for this post, I'll be bookmarking and watching later!
posted by BlackLeotardFront at 11:14 PM on December 24

Jared has consistently produced videos for years and years on lesser known fruits. It's totally worth diving into the back catalogue on youtube. He's never anything but pleasant and interested and finds some really strange and interesting things. One of my favorite youtube channels.
He had a premiere of the movie in NYC, if I was still living there I would have been so excited to go! I've been saving watching this for a quiet night when there are no distractions, the wife and kids are out so it's quiet and I can treat myself!
posted by conifer at 2:28 AM on December 25 [2 favorites]

Visiting Banda Niera was one of the highlights of a long trip I did in Indonesia back in 1990/91. I was very aware of the legacy of nutmeg ('pala' in Bahasa Indonesia) which is one reason I wanted to make a visit---which took a bit of determination. I also did a short excursion to one of the neighboring islands in the group, I can't recall which now--it might have been Palau Run, the island that the Dutch traded with the English to get Manhattan. Like Banda Niera, it had been occupied by Dutch citizens who had actively been encouraged to emigrate there (and elsewhere in Indonesia) and who were given land holdings on which to farm and homestead. These homesteads, of which there were several dozen, were now ruins that the people living on the island seemed to be more or less ignoring, i.e. no one was living in them and they were slowly being reclaimed by the forest. Sifting through the rubble of these old homesteads I was able to find many Delft blue pottery fragments as well as many broken black glass bottles, I would guess had held rum.

I definitely feel like I got to engage with a bit of history with my own eyes and hands. I also purchased a big bag of nutmegs while there, still in their shells. (I hadn't realized they had shells!) I stored them in a glass jar when I got them home and used that nutmeg for many years. Oh, and I ate a fair amount of dried pala, which is the fruit surrounding the nutmeg. It didn't have a ton of flavor and I'm not sure I'd have identified it as having anything to do with the pungent 'meg that it surrounded.
posted by Insert Clever Name Here at 6:36 AM on December 25 [4 favorites]

It didn't have a ton of flavor and I'm not sure I'd have identified it as having anything to do with the pungent 'meg that it surrounded.

That’s interesting, because in the video he tries the fruit numerous times in a variety of preparations and describes it as having a very complex, powerful flavor. I wonder if the difference is one of seasonality, variety, ripeness, or luck? Although, if it tastes more like mace than nutmeg I could see the disparity there. A lot of people are surprised to learn both spices come from the same fruit, and he does say the fruit tastes kind of lemony, which is a flavor mace is often described as having - or more like the citrus notes of coriander seed.

Typically I enjoy nutmeg much more on savory foods than sweet. I’m most curious about the flavor of the stew he tries, and the pickles. I’m always up for trying unusual pickles so hopefully I’ll be able to buy them at some point in the future.
posted by Mizu at 4:11 PM on December 25

I found the dried fruit to be sort of vaguely fruity and chewy---I didn't notice anything I would have strongly associated with nutmeg if I hadn't know the source. It was very common to find it for sale, pre-packaged, throughout Indonesia.

Oh, and if you ever get a hold of whole nutmeg in the shell, you'll immediately notice an interesting lacy imprint on the outside from the mace, which is sort of a caul (called an aril) that surrounds the nut. The pattern is different on every shell. Rather pretty.

So much history for such a simple thing.
posted by Insert Clever Name Here at 6:11 PM on December 25

I just stumbled across this, glad to see a post for it here. The story of genocide and survival was even more intense than the flavour of nutmeg itself. Worth watching the whole thing.
posted by clawsoon at 3:54 PM on January 3 [1 favorite]