Mace

Mace is the dried reticulated ‘aril’ of the fruit and nutmeg is the dried seed kernel of the fruit. Fruit is a fleshy drupe, spherical in shape, pale yellow in colour with a longitudinal groove in the centre. When the fruit mature it burst open along the groove exposing the bright attractive mace, covering the hard black, shiny shell of the seed called nutmeg.

Mace main Constituents Myristicin, camphene, a-pinene, b-terpineol, b-pinene, camphene, myrcene, myristicol, sabinene, limonene, elemicin, safrole, isoelemicin, dipentene, methoxyeugenol, linalool and safrole along with 2 resorcinols namely malabaricone C and malabaricone B.

Both Mace and Nutmeg are used as condiment particularly in sweet foods. The spice in the ground form is mainly used in the food processing industry especially as a standard seasoning in many Dutch dishes.Mace is used in savoury dishes. It is used as a drug in Eastern countries because of its stimulant, carminative, astringent and aphrodisiac properties. Excessive doses have a narcotic effect.