Origins of nutmeg

It’s my last morning in Panaji, Goa and a breakfast of papaya and aloo bhaji sits half eaten on a stark white plate. A quotidian scene, I’m sure, but there’s something striking about it. Smears of sauce emboldened with turmeric stretch across to rich orange, semi-irregular cubes. My little netbook looks odd next to it, like the Empire State Building sprouting out of a jungle rather than Midtown. Where did all of this stuff come from? The potato? The plate? The computer? Of course everything has an origin, but how often do we really stop to think about it? I mean, have I ever honestly thought about where this netbook came from? Not just the country of origin, but the actual physical plant. Is it dark inside? Glowing with fluorescent bulbs? Are the walls painted calming blue? Dingy grey? Is there music playing? Who actually put the screen in its casing? Is her name Judy? Probably not. Where does she live? Does she have children? What’s Judy’s favorite color? Red? Everything we consume has touched human hands, but it’s shockingly easy to forget that and be ignorantly content believing that everything just comes from Pathmark/Target/amazon.com. Maybe if I knew that red was Judy’s favorite color every time I browsed Crate and Barrel’s website and came across a crimson duvet cover, I’d stop and think, “Aww, Judy. You’d like that.” And then I’d be thankful that she made my computer.


I was about to say I was reminded of this fact over the last couple days, that everything has an origin and by consuming it we are interacting with other people around the world. But – was I really reminded? Or was today the first time I really thought about it?

Let’s restate:

I was shown this fact over the last couple days, especially as I visited a spice plantation tucked in the tropical hills around Panaji.

As I crossed the handmade pedestrian bridge (Where did these logs come from? Who put them here? Was it the same person who cut them down?), I was greeted by grazing water buffalo, unremitting rain, towering palms, and a smiling tour guide. He shook my hand, welcomed me to the Tropical Spice Farm, and handed me a “welcome drink” – a tea made of cardamom, lemon grass, and ginger. Apparently it was good for curing colds, ending indigestion, and easing anxiety. Not really afflicted by any of these woes (Anxiety? On vacation? Nope.), I was content with the fourth benefit: It tasted really good.

A small group formed – a Malaysian engineer now living in Paris, a vacationing family from Delhi, a scraggly black dog, me – and shortly thereafter we were trailing the guide and discovering the origin of the spices that haphazardly and chaotically inhabit the cupboard next to our stove. (Side note: I’m so envious of my mom’s spice cabinet. It’s organized alphabetically and utilizes tiered lazy Susans. I dream of such luxuries…)

I cannot count the number of times I let out an audible “Huh.” Not “Huh?” the question, but the “huh” with the inflection in the middle that means “Wow. I never knew that.” Did you know that…

• Bay leaves and cinnamon come from the same tree? You just scrape the bark off and – voilà – you have cinnamon. Knowing that, aren’t the cinnamon sticks we find at the store weird? They look nothing like bark. What the hell does McCormick’s do to make it look like that? Just give me the bark.

• Nutmeg requires both a male and female tree to be produced? The branches of each must touch one another in order to pollinate. To maximize space, a single male tree is planted in the middle of six female trees. What a botanical slut.

• Vanilla, the second most expensive spice in the world, must be pollinated by hand? Yep – every single flower. Also, dried vanilla beans should be rubbery. You should be able to wrap it around your finger. If you can’t – don’t use it. It’s not fresh. And the most expensive spice in the world? Saffron. It costs more than gold.

• Allspice isn’t a combination of various spices, but rather a single plant (which looks strikingly similar to some boring houseplant) whose green leaves simultaneously have the scent of cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves?



Despite the fact that ¿De dónde eres? is one of the first phrases taught in my classes, I had never asked that same question of my spice cabinet.

I again questioned origin while strolling the beach of Candolim. Desolate save a young couple wanting a place to canoodle (Sorry, by the way, for destroying your privacy), I was kept company by crashing waves, sheets of rain, amazingly green surroundings… and a gigantic beached industrial tanker.

Where the hell did that come from? It was, in a word, weird… and a little creepy. I mean, it was this absolutely gargantuan ship, rusted and ominous, looming over the entirety of the coast like some symbolic doomsday. The couple, arms around one another, seemed oblivious whereas I felt like it would leap out of the sea, bare fangs, and eat me in some gruesome Jaws-like chomp.

My line of questioning origin continued in Old Goa where the classical architecture – and prevalence of churches, chapels, and monasteries – led me to feel like I was in Latin America, another region familiar with the effects of colonialism. Entering the Sé Cathedral, the largest church in Asia, felt bizarre (Okay, it always feels weird for me to walk in a church, but that’s another story). I’m not trying to discount the religion of 24 million people in India, but the whole existence of Christianity here felt oddly imported. I suppose you could say that Christianity was imported to the States, as well, but there are many who would say the US is now a Christian nation. Clearly, with millions who practice Islam, Judaism, Hindu, etc. - not to mention a growing number of agnostics and atheists – this is an exclusionary, if not fictitious, statement.

Is religion just some cultural construct or manifestation? If so, are the religions that spread due to colonization or proselytization (i.e. Catholicism) just remnants of imperial tyranny? Moreover, if we can accept that Christianity was a European export (it would be hard to debate that) at what point does the imported product – in this case, religion – become a nationally grown entity? Have its roots in colonization disappeared – or rather been forgotten – consequently making it a “New World” product with a born on date of 1700? 1800? My point isn’t to chide religion (or bottled spices or large ships), but rather to question whether we question. Where did it come from?

Maybe that’s a far too simplistic question for such a debatable topic, but – if anything – it offers a little insight into the cashew on my shoulders. I start by fixating on a spice and the Darjeeling Thought Express somehow pulls into World Religion Station.

I can’t let it stay there too long, though, since I have a flight to Mumbai in a couple hours. I sip my chai, nosh on the food that’s still on the plate, and stare down at the street from the balcony. Girls in plaid uniforms sheepishly glance up at me and giggle. A bike horn sounds. I smile. The sun has come out. Now, I ask myself, after a week of incessant rain, where did that come from???