On Food and Cooking

until the Middle Ages. Today they provide the
characteristic flavoring for doughnuts and
eggnog, and are added to hot dogs and other
sausages. Nutmeg is also an important
element of the classic French béchamel sauce.
Both nutmeg and mace are borne inside the
plum-to peach-sized fruits of the tree. When
the fruit is ripe, it splits to reveal a shiny,
brown-black shell; and entwined around the
shell, a narrow, irregular, bright red ribbon.
The red ribbon is an aril, a fruit part whose
color and sugars attract birds to carry it and
the seed away. The aril is the spice called
mace, and the seed inside the shell is the
nutmeg. The aril is removed from the shell
and dried separately. The aroma compounds
in nutmeg are concentrated in a layer of oil-
containing tissue that weaves through the
seed’s main body of starchy and fatty storage
tissue, which also contains astringent tannins.
Nutmeg and mace have similar but distinct
flavors, with mace the gentler and more