Monodora myristica Monodora myristica Monodora myristica, the calabash nutmeg, is a tropical tree of the family Annonaceae or custard apple family of flowering plants. In former times, its seeds were widely sold as an inexpensive nutmeg substitute. This is now less common outside its region of production. Other names of calabash nutmeg include Jamaican nutmeg, African nutmeg, ehuru, ariwo, awerewa, ehiri, airama, African orchid nutmeg, muscadier de Calabash and lubushi. The calabash nutmeg tree grows naturally in evergreen forests from Liberia to Nigeria and Cameroon, Ghana, Angola and also Uganda and west Kenya. Due to the slave trade in the 18th century,
The Art of Cookery Made Plain and Easy were becoming available. The recipe for "Elder-Shoots, in Imitation of Bamboo" makes use of a homely ingredient to substitute for a foreign one that English travellers had encountered in the Far East. The same recipe also calls for a variety of imported spices to flavour the pickle: "an Ounce of white or red Pepper, an Ounce of Ginger sliced, a little Mace, and a few Corns of Jamaica Pepper." There are two recipes for making chocolate, calling for costly imported ingredients like musk (an aromatic obtained from musk deer) and ambergris (a waxy substance from sperm whales), vanilla and cardamon: