No Mace in Penang, however Nutmeg trees grow wild here!

Thewitt · Post by **Thewitt** » Wed May 15, 2013 08:27

This is just a rant from a frustrated spice shopper - in the spice capital of the world!

We grow Nutmeg in Penang. Lots of it. Harvesting Nutmeg it is a tradition that goes back centuries.

We have Nutmeg farms here, and you can buy candied nutmeg, nutmeg jams, visit the Spice Garden and see how it's grown and harvested.

Do you think I can find ANY store of ANY kind that sells mace? Mace is the ground outer bark of the Nutmeg nut.

Nope.....

Still searching. I've spent more on gas running down leads than it would have cost me to simply have a bottle shipped here from somewhere else...

Maybe I'll just go out into the jungle and pick a few nuts and make my own!

-t

Cabonaia · Post by **Cabonaia** » Wed May 15, 2013 14:49

Hi Thewitt - you can substitute nutmeg for mace 1:1. That's what I do, because they are expensive here and I don't want to buy both.

Cheers,
Jeff

Thewitt · Post by **Thewitt** » Wed May 15, 2013 15:01

Cabonaia wrote:Hi Thewitt - you can substitute nutmeg for mace 1:1. That's what I do, because they are expensive here and I don't want to buy both.

Cheers,
Jeff

They do have a different taste, and in fact this one recipe calls for both.

If I can't source it i will just use nutmeg, but so frustrating living in the place where mace is produced, and not being able to buy it!

-t

ssorllih · Post by **ssorllih** » Wed May 15, 2013 15:43

I have a microplane nutmeg grinder that i am sure would work well on a nutmeg that had not been husked. purchase or collect a bag of whole nutmegs and grind what you need fresh each time. It doesn't take more than about ten minutes to grind a whole nutmeg to powder.

Thewitt · Post by **Thewitt** » Wed May 15, 2013 15:58

ssorllih wrote:I have a microplane nutmeg grinder that i am sure would work well on a nutmeg that had not been husked. purchase or collect a bag of whole nutmegs and grind what you need fresh each time. It doesn't take more than about ten minutes to grind a whole nutmeg to powder.

That is likely the best route while I'm still making small batches and playing with flavor combinations.

-t

el Ducko · Post by **el Ducko** » Wed May 15, 2013 16:49

Our ol' buddies, the Wikipedians, have a nice writeup (including a picture of a split nutmeg fruit, showing the mace, about half-way down the page, labelled "Mace (red) within nutmeg fruit") at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mace_%28spice%29 It's different from the outer bark, seems to me, but then, I don't live where you do and would be a poor judge. Anyway, hope this link helps.

Looks like it would take some effort for you to get the stuff "in the field," unless you have friends who grow nutmeg. In the USA, I buy mace in dried form but not yet ground, at Indian grocery stores. Surely you have something like those stores in Malaysia. (You may have to ask for help, as the names in Hindi can be quite different from those that the English called them.)(Google translate calls it "cokmar" in the Malay language... but you probably knew that.)

I once worked with a bunch of Russians on a chemical plant construction project, and mistakenly translated "tank" to the military version instead of the process vessel. ...hope I didn't do that, above. (...but with my luck, it's probably obscene.)

Thewitt · Post by **Thewitt** » Wed May 15, 2013 17:07

Cokmar in Malay - pronounced chokmar - used to be used in a long, stringy form on the top of one of the famous Penang desserts, ice kacang. My favorite stall in Georgetown tells me they stopped using it several years ago when they could no longer get it at the wet market.

We used to be able to get custom hand mixed curry powder here but it's all pre-packaged now as well...

-t