The word “spice” is evocative of exotic tropical shores, mystery and romance. The story of the clove does indeed begin on tropical shores, but it is perhaps more brutal than it is romantic.
Cloves are native to the Maluku islands in Indonesia, once known as the Spice Islands, as they were the sole source of nutmeg, mace and cloves. Cloves are closely related to Australian lillipillies, more distantly to eucalyptus and bottlebrushes, New Zealand pohutukawa, and South American guavas.
The part of the plant used as a spice is not the bark, as in cinnamon, or the seed, as in nutmeg, but the dried, unopened flower buds. The buds have a sharp point on one end, and a round head on the other, resembling a carpenter’s nail – “clavus” in Latin – giving us the English word “clove”. In Dutch, they are called kruidnagels – “herb nails”. It was the Dutch who controlled their trade for centuries.
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