MYRISTICA, the Nutmeg Tree.. The seeds or kernels called nutmegs are well known, as they have long been used both for culinary and medicinal purposes. Distilled with water, they yield a large quantity of essential oil, resembling in flavour the spice itself; after the distillation an insipid sebaceous matter is found swimming on the water; and the decoction inspissated gives an extract of an unctuous, very slightly bitterish taste, and with little or no astringency. Rectified spirit extracts the whole virtue of nutmegs by infusion, and elevates very little of it in distillation; hence the spirituous extract possesses the flavour of the spice in an eminent degree.

Nutmegs, when heated, yield to the press a considerable quantity of limpid yellow oil, which, on cooling, concretes into a sebaceous consistence. In the shops we meet with three sorts of unctuous substances, called oil of mace, though really expressed from the nutmeg. The best, which is brought from the East Indies in stone jars, is of a thick consistence, of the colour of mace, and has an agreeable fragrant smell; the second sort, which is of a paler colour, and much inferior in quality, comes from Holland in solid masses, generally flat, and of a square figure; the third, which is the worst of all, and usually called common oil of mace, is an artificial composition of sevum, palm oil, and the like, flavoured with a little genuine oil of nutmeg.

When the fruit is ripe, the natives ascend the trees, and gather it by pulling the branches to them with long hooks. Some are employed in opening them immediately, and in taking off the green shell or first rind, which is laid together in a heap in the woods, where in time it putrefies. As soon as the putrefaction has taken place, there spring up a kind of mushrooms called boleti moschatyni, of a blackish colour, and much valued by the natives, who consider them as delicate eating. When the nuts are stripped of their first rind they are carried home, and the mace is carefully taken off with a small knife. The mace, which is of a beautiful red, but afterwards assumes a darkish or reddish colour, is laid to dry in the sun for the space of a day, and is then removed to a place less exposed to his rays, where it remains for eight days, that it may soften a little. It is afterwards moistened with sea water, to prevent it from drying too much, or from losing its oil; but the people are careful not to employ too much water, lest it should become putrid, and be devoured by the worms. It is last of all put into small bags, and squeezed very close.

The nuts, which are still covered with their ligneous shell, are for three days exposed to the sun, and afterwards dried before a fire till they emit a sound when they are shaken; they then beat them with small sticks, in order to remove their shell, which flies off in pieces. These nuts are distributed into three parcels, the first of which contains the largest and most beautiful, which are destined for Europe; the second contains such as are reserved for the use of the inhabitants; and the third contains the smallest, which are irregular or unripe. These last are burned; and part of the rest is employed for procuring oil by pressure. A pound of them commonly gives three ounces of oil, which has the consistence of tallow, and the taste of nutmeg. Both the nut and mace, when distilled, afford an essential, transparent, and volatile oil, of an excellent flavour.

The nutmegs which have thus been selected would soon corrupt if they were not watered, or rather pickled, with lime-water made from calcined shell-fish, which is diluted with salt water till it attain the consistence of fluid pap. Into this mixture are plunged the nutmegs, contained in small baskets, two or three times, till they are completely covered over with the liquor. They are afterwards laid in a heap, where they heat, and lose their superfluous moisture by evaporation. When they have sweated sufficiently, they are then properly prepared, and fit for a sea voyage.

In the island of Banda, the fruit of the nutmeg-tree is preserved entire in the following manner. When ‘it is almost ripe, but previous to its opening, it is boiled in water and pierced with a needle. It is next laid in water to soak for ten days, till it has lost its sour and sharp taste, and then it is boiled gently in a syrup of sugar, to which, if they wish it to be hard, a little lime is added. This operation is repeated for eight days, and each time the syrup is renewed. The fruit, when thus preserved, is put for the last time into a pretty thick syrup, and is kept in earthen pots closely shut.