What is the more common name of Allspice, a member of the Myrtle family?
Allspice of Caribbean cuisine. It is used in Jamaican jerk seasoning (the wood is used to smoke jerk in Jamaica, although the spice is a good substitute), in "moles", and in pickling; it is also an ingredient in commercial sausage preparations and curry powders. Allspice is also indispensable in Middle Eastern cuisine, particularly in the Levant, where it is used to flavour a variety of stews and meat dishes. In Arab cuisine, for example, many main dishes call for allspice as the sole spice added for flavouring. In the West Indies, an allspice liqueur is produced under the name "pimento dram"
Allspice Allspice Allspice, also called pimenta, Jamaica pimenta, or myrtle pepper, is the dried unripe fruit (berries, used as a spice) of "Pimenta dioica", a midcanopy tree native to the Greater Antilles, southern Mexico, and Central America, now cultivated in many warm parts of the world. The name "allspice" was coined as early as 1621 by the English, who thought it combined the flavour of cinnamon, nutmeg and cloves. Several unrelated fragrant shrubs are called "Carolina allspice" ("Calycanthus floridus"), "Japanese allspice" ("Chimonanthus praecox"), or "wild allspice" ("Lindera benzoin"). "Allspice" is also sometimes used to refer to the herb costmary ("Tanacetum balsamita").