Pala and Fuli — the Nutmeg and Mace of Banda

The nutmeg tree, Myristica fragrans, is native to the small Banda Islands in the Banda Sea of Maluku, where for centuries it was the only source of both nutmeg and mace. Banda spice was carried west by Javanese, Malay, Arab and Gujarati traders long before Europeans arrived, and Tomé Pires describes the trade in the Suma Oriental. The Dutch VOC under Jan Pieterszoon Coen conquered Banda in 1621 to seize the monopoly, and the plantation system that followed, the perkenier estates, reshaped the islands' people and their land. Cultivation later spread to other parts of the archipelago and the tropics, but Banda remains the name the trade holds in highest regard. Eleanor Ford writes of the islands and their spice in Fire Islands.

Pala is the seed of the nutmeg tree, Myristica fragrans, a hard, oval, brown kernel about the size of a small egg when whole. Fuli is mace, the lacy crimson aril that wraps the seed inside the split fruit; dried, it turns to a pale orange-gold blade that is brittle and fragrant. Both come from the one fruit but are different in character, nutmeg warmer and sweeter, mace finer and more resinous. In Maluku the fleshy outer fruit is also eaten, sliced and candied as manisan pala or cooked in syrup, and the pale flesh is sometimes dried and sugared. Nutmeg is sold whole and grated to order; mace is sold in blades or ground.

In Indonesia nutmeg goes into soto and sop broths, into the Dutch-Indonesian table's meat dishes and rich stews, and into the sweet baked cakes and spice mixtures that the Dutch period left behind. Mace is used whole in long braises and stocks, where it perfumes the liquid and is lifted out before serving. The candied pala of Banda is eaten as a sweet, and the tradition drinks nutmeg in warm spiced drinks. The structural reason is that nutmeg's resinous sweetness sits comfortably against fat, meat and milk, and softens the sharpness of clove and pepper in the same pot.