Cengkeh — the Cloves of Maluku

The clove, Syzygium aromaticum, is native to the small volcanic islands of northern Maluku, Ternate, Tidore, Moti, Makian and Bacan, where the tree grew before any trade in it began. Its dried flower buds travelled west through the spice routes long before Europeans arrived, and the sultanates of Ternate and Tidore controlled the supply until the Portuguese, the Spanish and then the VOC contested it. Tomé Pires described the trade in the Suma Oriental, and the Dutch later confined cultivation to Ambon and the Lease islands, uprooting trees elsewhere, a policy that ended only when seedlings were carried out of the archipelago. The islands remain the spice's home, and the families who tend the trees and dry the buds by hand carry the tradition.

The cengkeh is the unopened flower bud of Syzygium aromaticum, an evergreen tree of the myrtle family. The bud is picked when the base has turned from green to rose-pink, then dried in the sun on mats for several days until it is hard, dark brown and shaped like a small nail with a rounded head. The head is the calyx enclosing the unopened petals, and the shaft below it holds most of the oil. Whole buds are used in Indonesian cooking; ground clove is rare in the kitchen. Cloves go into the spice mixes of Maluku and Java, into the rich meat dishes of Sumatra, into the broths and sweet-spiced stews of the Dutch-influenced table, and in great quantity into kretek, the clove cigarette, which takes the larger share of the harvest.

Cloves are cooked with meat, rice and sweet liquids that can carry a strong, numbing, resinous aroma: beef and goat in long coconut braises, the spiced rice of festival tables, and the sweet broths and wedang drinks of Java. They sit beside cinnamon, nutmeg, cardamom, coriander and pepper, with coconut milk and palm sugar to round them. The structural reason is that clove is dominant and bitter if left alone, so it needs fat to carry it and sweetness to soften it, and it is used in small number so that it perfumes rather than rules the dish.