Allspice (Myrtales)
Allspice is the unripe berry of the tropical tree Pimenta dioica, which is native to the Caribbean and Central America. It is also known as Jamaica pepper, myrtle pepper and pimento.
On Christopher Columbus’ first voyage, in Cuba, he showed specimens of pepper to the natives, who ‘said, by signs, that there was plenty in the vicinity’– this could have been allspice.29 It may have been encountered in Jamaica by Columbus on his second voyage in 1494, and he would certainly have been familiar with it on his fourth voyage in 1503, when he was stranded there for a year. It was introduced to Europe in the early sixteenth century. The Spanish used the term ‘pimienta’ to describe allspice, based on (loose) physical similarity to the Old World black pepper. Somewhat confusingly, ‘pimienta’ was also used for capsicum/chili because of its similar pungency to black pepper. The flavour of allspice resembles a mixture of cloves, cinnamon and nutmeg and it is therefore a versatile spice which can be adopted for use in sweet and savoury dishes. M. Preusz et al. referred to two rare finds of ancient allspice in Prague, one from sediment dated from the fifteenth century to 1615, the other from the seventeenth or eighteenth century.30 A description of allspice occurs in the 1686 botanical work Historia Plantarum; however, allspice is absent in early English recipes, cooks tending to continue using nutmeg and cloves, etc.31 Eliza Smith frequently referred to Jamaica pepper in her 1727 book and Hannah Glasse (1747) used it in a pickling recipe.32 It started to become more common in cookery books in the late 1700s.33Today, the tree is grown in numerous tropical and subtropical countries. Jamaica is the largest producer and exporter of allspice, with 70 per cent of world trade. While the dried and crushed berries are mainly used to make spice for cooking, it is also used in berry oil production, liqueurs, traditional medicine and in the perfume industry. 8
Sugar
Sugarcane from Flore Medicale, 1835.
(Biodiversity Heritage Library)
We tend to associate sugarcane with the Caribbean (because of its long association there with plantations and slavery), but in fact it is indigenous to Asia. Saccharum officinarum is native to New Guinea and possibly eastern Indonesia and may have been cultivated for around 10,000 years.1 It probably developed from an earlier species, S. robustum. Almost 80 per cent of the world’s sugar comes from S. officinarum and its hybrids. It advanced westwards, first through Southeast Asia and then to north-east India around 1000 BCE. Sugarcane spread rapidly through Asia and Africa, eastward through the Pacific, and from India through western Asia and North Africa in early medieval times. Its introduction to the Americas was part of the Columbian Exchange.
The genus Saccharum belongs to the Poaceae family, otherwise known as the grasses, with nineteen species, though there are only six species of sugarcane.2 The plant stems of S. officinarum can be very tall, reaching 5m in height, and have marked horizontal joints or nodes formed at the bases of the leaves. The internode areas contain the fibrous pith and sweet sap that the plant is known for.
Wild sugarcane (possibly Saccharum spontaneum) is mentioned in the eighth century BCE Sushruta Samhita, one of the founder Ayurvedic texts. S. spontaneum is native to India and has hybridised with S. officinarum. Natural hybrids of these two species may have led to the appearance of S. barberi in north India and S. sinense in China, both of which were cultivated from prehistoric times.3