Sara Hohn – Food… Brooklyn & Beyond

“It smells like pumpkin pie,” my friend commented as we paused, staring at a small green leaf in the subtropical rainforest.

We were holding a three-inch piece of foliage to our noses from the shrub-like allspice tree which grows abundantly in the limestone-hilled jungles of Western Belize. While Jamaica is the world’s largest exporter of allspice (a key ingredient in jerk seasoning), in the beautiful, New Jersey-sized country of Belize, I repeatedly came across this fragrant tree, whose dried fruits are used in sweet and savory dishes worldwide. It is the only spice grown exclusively in the Western Hemisphere. This isn’t the fruit-bearing time of year for allspice trees, but we were aromatically transported from the distinct,complex, earth-scented leaves.

Belying its name, allspice is a single spice used both whole and ground made from the dried berries of the allspice tree. Its English name references the fact that it tastes like a combination of several other spices including cloves and nutmeg. The allspice tree is recognized by its peeling bark and white flowers with green allspice berries which darken and harden, resembling peppercorns. The whole or ground spice is used in baking, marinating, curing and preserving. It enlivens everything from barbecue sauce to fruitcake, stews to liqueurs (and yes, pumpkin pie) and is used everywhere from Palestine to Puerto Rico.

Like many plants growing in rainforests, allspice has medicinal properties. It can supposedly kill your foot fungus, settle your stomach, raise your energy and relieve aches, either in the form of a tea, paste or bath. The Mayans have known about these properties for thousands of years and the ancient Mayans may have used allspice as part of an embalming mixture. Eventually allspice became a common flavoring for chocolate drinks and is still used by Mayan cooks today. Now when I catch that sweet, rich scent of allspice, it will not only take me back to cool Thanksgiving mornings, but also to the wilds of Belize.