Allspice is the dried, unripened fruit of a smallish evergreen tree in the myrtle family, (Pimenta Dioica.) The fruit is a pea-sized berry which, after harvesting, is sundried to a reddish-brown color. It was named “Pimenta,” Spanish for pepper, because it so closely resembled peppercorns, that the early Spanish explorers to the New World mistook it. It was later named “Allspice,” by the English because the flavor is like a blend of cloves, cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger and |
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a hint of black pepper. It is not however, as many people believe, a blend of those spices. It is also sometimes referred to as Jamaican Pepper.
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Although it grows throughout much of Mexico and Central America, Jamaican Allspice is considered the best, being cultivated and hand harvested on plantations. The berries are stored in piles where they undergo a slight fermentation |
before being sundried and graded for size and quality. That coming from Mexico and Central American countries is usually gathered from wild plants and is less uniform in both size and quality than the Jamaican variety.
The British developed a taste for allspice in the three hundred years, beginning in 1655, that Jamaica was a British colony. In Britain, allspice goes into stews and sauces, and it flavors pickled vegetables and pickled and cured meats. It use to be used in much the same way in the United States. In Europe, allspice goes into spice mixtures for sausage and cured meats, and in Scandinavia it’s frequently used to flavor savory meat pastry fillings. Allspice is well-known in Turkey and Lebanon, where it is one of the ingredients in the spice blend, Baharat, a curry like seasoning. In Africa, the Ethiopian spice mixture Berberé contains allspice. Commercially in the U. S. it is used in seasoning blends, sauces, sausages, ketchup, jams, pumpkin, gravies, roasts, hams, baked goods, and teas.
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Allspice is used extensively in Caribbean cuisine, especially in Jamaica. Fiery jerk seasoning pastes featuring allspice are used to marinate pork, goat, or chicken before barbecuing, preferably over an allspice-wood fire. Meat may also be stuffed or wrapped with allspice leaves, similar to the use of bay in the Mediterranean. Jamaican pimento dram is a liqueur made by steeping allspice berries in rum. |
The Aztecs spiced hot chocolate with allspice and vanilla, and the Mayans used allspice to embalm their dead.
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