Written by: James
The Moluccas are a tiny group of Indonesian islands that centuries ago were known as the Spiceries - the place where spices were produced. For Europeans in the 15th and 16th Centuries they were an almost mythical place, well beyond the known world and it's incredible to imagine what an enormous attraction these miniscule islands held for people. To get there meant at least a year away from home, unbelievable hardship, potential shipwreck, disease and quite possibly death.
To be honest it didn't seem a great deal easier now (maybe without the death bit), as the islands still feel ridiculously remote. A modern journey involves a flight to Jakarta, a couple of internal flights taking several hours, a long boat journey, then if you're lucky the fortnightly boat or flight out to the islands won't have been cancelled or rescheduled to leave the day before you arrive. Over the centuries the European powers all battled for control of the Moluccas as they were the only place in the world where nutmeg, mace and cloves grew. Europeans craved these ingredients, not just for their flavour in cooking but also for their perfume, alleged medicinal properties and as much as anything else because the heavenly scent and mystery of these things represented luxury and a taste of a world almost beyond comprehension.
The demand in Europe at the time was supplied by Arabs and Venetians who controlled the overland routes but the long journey times and numerous middlemen meant that prices were very high. There was a race to discover where these ingredients came from and find a direct route as huge fortunes awaited anyone who could get there first. Portuguese explorers had discovered the coasts of India and Sri Lanka where there were already Arab and Chinese traders but found they weren't keen to divulge the secret locations of these islands much further east. Eventually they learned of a route to the islands and the first Portuguese ships arrived in the early 16th Century. The Portuguese never had the manpower to dominate the trade though, and over time the Spanish, Dutch and British arrived in larger numbers and with more resources.
Of these groups it was the Dutch who've left the greatest legacy. Their East India Company (V.O.C) was perhaps the world's first multinational corporation and became the richest private company the world had ever seen. The company sold shares to private investors and used the funds to trade but also to establish military bases and negotiate treaties almost like a government. Its sheer size, efficiency and ruthlessness meant it was able to dominate the East Indies trade for centuries despite regular battles with the British and Spanish fleets. The islands are now a really sleepy backwater and the idea that they were at one point the centre of world trade seems pretty surreal.
They still grow spices there but on a fairly small scale (although still a very high quality). Over the centuries the various European powers eventually transplanted these crops to their other colonies where they're now grown on a more industrial scale. Despite that the islands are really beautiful places, with lush fertile landscapes and stunning crystal clear seas giving some of the best diving conditions anywhere in the world. If they ever become easier to get to, these islands will surely be the next big tourist hotspot.
The nutmeg fruit looks a bit like a large apricot but is hard and slightly soapy tasting so isn't used fresh. It does have a bit of the flavour of nutmeg though and is sometimes dried or made into jam. The valuable bits are the red mace and the nutmeg which is the kernel of the fruit inside the shell that's wrapped in the mace. Despite the fact that what these islands produced was such a draw for the Europeans, as far as I could tell there's hardly any nutmeg, mace or cloves being used in the local cooking. Apparently before the Dutch arrived, the cooking of the Moluccas was rich and fragrant with these ingredients being used in abundance, but the Dutch were utterly ruthless in their control of the crops. They were deemed far too valuable for the locals to use, an offence that was punishable by death (in fact the entire population of the Banda islands were wiped out by the Dutch at one point and people from Java and Sumatra shipped in to work on the plantations). This meant that once control over the growing was finally released, the local knowledge of how to use these crops was gone and they're now grown mainly for export (apart from cloves used in the local kretek cigarettes). In the local markets you always see white pepper, turmeric, cumin and chillies for sale but hardly any mace or nutmeg. I don't know if anyone has kept alive the old cooking of the Moluccas but it seems likely that it may have disappeared forever.
