nutmeg

The seed kernel of Myristica fragrans, and in this library one part of a blend. The Levantine 7-Spice Mix uses 4 grams, about one small nutmeg, against 2 parts each of cinnamon, black pepper, cardamom, coriander and cumin and 1 part of cloves. The method has a rule about order: grind everything else to a fine powder, then grate the nutmeg in last so its volatile oils stay bright. The recipe keeps it to a single part because myristicin, the compound it traces to the seed, is potent as well as warm, woody and faintly sweet. The recipe says to jar it airtight, away from light and heat, and to use it within a couple of months.

The Journal's note on how far a grating of nutmeg is from a dose opens with a 37-year-old cooking asparagus who used roughly two teaspoons, around 10 grams. She woke at four in the morning confused, with a heart rate of 120; the confusion cleared inside ten hours, and the dry mouth and urinary retention took 36. A teaspoon of ground nutmeg weighs 2.2 grams and a grating is a few tenths of a gram, so the note puts seasoning twenty-fold to a hundred-fold below the doses in the literature, which run from about 10 to 25 grams.

The note takes on two popular claims. No source establishes a lethal dose of nutmeg: California logged 119 single-substance exposures between 1997 and 2008 with no deaths. And the idea that myristicin turns into an amphetamine in the body began as a 1966 hypothesis; when Beyer, Ehlers and Maurer looked in 2006, in urine from a suspected abuse case and from dosed rats, they could not detect amphetamine derivatives. Its verdict: seasoning is fine and the arithmetic is the reason; what protects everyone is that nutmeg at ten grams tastes appalling.