FOOD SPECIAL..All Rounder Spice

All Rounder Spice

Allspice has a general spiciness that combines the aroma and taste of cloves, cinnamon and nutmeg

In 1492 when Christopher Columbus first sailed into unexplored Western seas, he took along samples of the spices he wanted to find. These were pepper, cloves, cinnamon and nutmeg, the much prized spices of the East Asian islands he hoped to reach. And when he landed in the Bahamas and showed the spices to the Arawak people he encountered, he was excited to note that they seemed to recognise the round pepper berries.

    It isn't clear if it was on that trip, or a later one that he found the berries they probably meant — round and pungent like pepper, though more moderate in heat, but with the wonderfully unexpected addition of aromatic spicy notes similar to cloves, cinnamon and nutmeg. These berries improbably seemed to have the flavours of all the spices he wanted, the ultimate all-in-one product, like a microwave that cooks, grills, bakes, steams, packs your lunch dabba and then cleans the box as well!

But the plant product that really made it big from those trips was not those berries, but a small green or red pod with a viciously hot kick and really little else. Chillies are the culinary reason we remember Columbus' voyage, the spice that exploded across the world, and established itself in Asia so deeply we find it hard to believe it originally came from the Americas. Those multi-scented berries languished as a minor spice known as Jamaica pepper or, appropriately if not exactly distinctively, as allspice.

We are told as we grow up about the value of moderation. We are warned that geniuses can be great at one thing, but ruin their lives in other ways, and that it is better to express our abilities in a balanced way. Yet allspice is an example of why this wisdom doesn't always seem to work. It has a lovely rounded general spiciness. It is not extreme — it delivers the aroma of cloves, without that nasty medicinal note that reminds you of the dentist and it gives you c i n n a m o n witho u t i t s s l i g h t s i ck l i n e s s, nutmeg without its druggy note and pepper without extreme pungency.

Allspice also grows on lovely trees, each part of which is similarly scented; in their book The Spice of Life, on the history of spices, Sheldon Greenberg and Elizabeth Lambert Ortiz write that in a walk amid allspice trees in spring "when whole trees are blanketed by small, powder-white, aromatic flowers, one of nature's great sensual experiences is offered." It produces profusely (with one problem, which we'll come to), so the berries are cheap where it grows, and they work equally well with sweet and savoury. They are even used to make a rum based drink that is said to be delicious and which is, I think, the basis for spiced rums like Captain Morgan's, which is now a major international brand.

    And yet allspice remains a minor spice. Even food writers rarely have much to say about it — among the many writers on spices, Greenberg and Ortiz are almost the only ones I've found who devote much attention to it, and much of their chapter on allspice is devoted to wondering why it is so neglected. It is almost as if it was too perfect, the ideal product devised as per focus groups and R&D which real life customers ignore, attracted instead by the more dramatic spices. Allspice is that nice boy-or-girl-next-door who our parents keep trying to get us to meet, but who we just find too boring.

    But if Bollywood is to be believed, those nice neighbours are the ones we will learn to love, and allspice has a way of growing on you. The British are fond of it, perhaps from long encounter with it in their colony of Jamaica where it grows best, and use it to flavour puddings and cakes, and also to add spiciness to sausages. It is used for similar purposes in parts of Scandinavia and Eastern Europe, and is appreciated in Ethiopia and the Eastern Mediterranean. Syria is the biggest allspice enthusiast and in Food Cultures of the World, edited by Ken Albala, we are told that on Syrian tables, "salt and allspice appear instead of salt and pepper."

    Syria and its neighbours prefer spicy aromas to really strong spicy tastes, and allspice clearly fits well here. It is particularly used in mixtures of minced meat, whether kheema or kebabs, and this use has spread across the Middle East to India. Allspice appears in some sophisticated North Indian cuisines, like that of Lucknow. RK Saxena and Sangeeta Bhatnagar in Dastarkhan-e-Awadh mention it as a flavouring for Patili Kebabs, which despite its name is a kheema dish served in a copper or brass pot. Monisha Bharadwaj is probably right to say in The Indian Kitchen that allspice is "sometimes the secret, magic ingredient that gives a scent of heaven to north Indian curries and biryanis."

    Part of the problem with allspice in India is its name, which is usually given as kababchini. But this could also refer to cassia buds, which are known to be a spice, but so minor and rare that I wonder if this is really what Pratibha Karan means when she refers to them in her Biryani, an excellent book rather let down by inadequate discussion of ingredients. Kababchini could also be cubeb, another now obscure spice, but which from its name and origin (it comes from Java, so vaguely China) was probably what it was. The kababchini I get in Crawford Market may also be cubeb, since it has its distinctive tail, or stalk, and rather more pungent taste.

    But real allspice grows in Kerala and the berries are sold under the Keya brand. The plant grows in South India, but doesn't always produce berries, and this is probably the real reason why allspice never made it big. The tree is notoriously hard to grow outside Jamaica, for reasons that aren't clear. It was supposed at one time that the seeds had to be eaten and excreted by birds, but this has been shown not to untrue. Some trees just don't produce berries, even in Jamaica, but they are still worth growing. And this is because I have realised that while allspice berries are great, the leaves are even better.

    They are similar to the tej patta we use in our cooking, though with less of its woody aroma, and more spice. The leaves are more fragrant than the berries, adding an intense freshness when green, and a refined spiciness when dried. They are one of the very best things to add to plain black tea, giving it a wonderful, lingering aroma of compounded sweet spices that both relaxes and refreshes you. It is a lovely sensation that I have been reintroduced to by a young man named Noshirwan who has an orchard near Ratnagiri where he grows wonderful organic mangoes.

    Along with them he has planted a few allspice trees which he says don't produce berries, but whose dried leaves he has been selling at the Organic Farmer's Market in Mumbai. The Market will end its season at the end of March, but Noshirwan will be doing home delivery of mangoes and if I place an order, I will definitely ask for a dispatch of this most modest, yet pleasantly addictive of spices.

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