Allspice: An All-Around Healer – A Powerful Antioxidant

Allspice. What else would you name a spice that resembles the taste and aroma of so many others!

When put to a blind sniff test, allspice has been erroneously identified as nutmeg, cinnamon, black pepper, and juniper berry, but it’s most often mistaken for clove. And it’s no wonder. Allspice gets its rich and fragrant aroma from the volatile oil eugenol, the same substance that has made oil of clove such a well-known pain desensitizer.

Eugenol, however, isn’t all that gives allspice a reputation for being a healing spice. Allspice contains more than two dozen compounds with an even greater variety of healing actions, making it a genuine all-round curative.

Jamaican Me Healthy

If you’ve ever set foot on the tropical island nation of Jamaica, you have surely experienced allspice at its absolute best—as the spicy secret in the country’s signature style of cooking, known as jerking. Allspice is what gives jerk chicken and pork their zing. (Ten-alarm fiery Scotch bonnet chiles give it sting.) Even the best homespun recipe can’t match the taste of Jamaica’s jerk, because the oh-so-slow jerk cooking you spot at roadside stands all over the country is done over a fire seasoned with the wood and the leaves of the pimento tree that produces allspice berries. The small and scrubby evergreen is partial to sandy Jamaican soil and it doesn’t grow prodigiously elsewhere, which is why it is hard to find genuine jerk anywhere else in the world.

When Christopher Columbus first “discovered” dried allspice berries after setting foot on Jamaica in 1494, he quite excitedly thought he’d found peppercorns—the Lotto of its day, considering that pepper was traded as currency at the time. It was an honest (and no doubt a subsequently disappointing) misidentification. Whole allspice berries look like peppercorns—they’re just a little larger in size and have a deep reddish-brown hue. Medicinally, allspice possesses antiviral and antibacterial qualities, making it an infection fighter. It has analgesic and anesthetic properties, so it can offer mild pain relief. Jamaicans were the first to use it as a folk remedy to help alleviate a cold, soothe a stomachache, regulate the menstrual cycle, and relieve indigestion, flatulence, and other digestive woes.

ALLSPICE IS THE SECRET IN JAMAICA’S SIGNATURE STYLE OF COOKING, KNOWN AS JERKING.

Russian soldiers took advantage of its warming (stimulant) qualities during Napoleon’s invasion during the winter of 1812 by sprinkling it in their boots to improve blood flow and help keep their feet warm. Its antifungal qualities have made it a home remedy for athlete’s foot, simply by sprinkling powdered allspice between the toes. Used as an essential oil (pimento oil), its anti-inflammatory action has been found to help bring relief to sore muscles and the painful joints of rheumatoid arthritis.

A Powerful Antioxidant

Allspice is loaded with antioxidants. Researchers in Japan found these tiny berries contain 25 active phenols, a category of antioxidant. They include ellagic acid, eugenol, and quercetin—all of which fight the oxidative cell damage that can lead to cancer, heart disease, Alzheimer’s, and other chronic health problems. Allspice may have other healing powers.

In three separate studies, researchers in Costa Rica found that allspice lowered high blood pressure in laboratory animals. The researchers theorize allspice works by relaxing the central nervous system and improving blood flow in the arteries.

Recently, researchers confirmed what Costa Rican herbalists have known for centuries. Allspice helps relieve the symptoms of menopause. The researchers were investigating allspice and 16 other plants used in herbal medicine as a possible natural alternative to hormone replacement therapy, which increases the risk of heart disease and certain types of cancer. Although the research is preliminary, the scientists think allspice may be a viable natural alternative in the treatment and management of menopause and osteoporosis.

Hard to Duplicate

Allspice is sweetly pungent with a peppery kick, a complex taste that is hard to match. For example, whenever you’re out of cinnamon, cloves, or nutmeg, an equal portion of allspice is the perfect substitute, but when you’re out of allspice, no single spice will do. To get a close substitute for allspice, combine one part nutmeg to two parts each of ground cinnamon and cloves.

Getting to Know Allspice

You may not realize it, but you are probably already well acquainted with allspice. It is a common flavoring in soft drinks, chewing gum, ketchup, barbecue sauce, pates, terrines, smoked fish, and canned meats. You might even have worn it: allspice is commonly used to fragrance cosmetics and even deodorants. If the label on one of those products says spice, you can bet that it’s allspice.

Allspice also puts flavor to the liqueurs Benedictine and Chartreuse, and if you’ve ever had the Jamaican drink called pimento dram, you were drinking rum flavored with allspice.

Allspice is also a common ingredient in curries, mulling spices, and, of course, jerk. It is best known, however, as a pickling agent. The Jamaicans were using allspice to preserve freshly slaughtered meat and caught fish long before Christopher Columbus “discovered” it and took it back to Spain. Today, allspice is a key ingredient in the Spanish dish escabeche, fish that is first fried, then marinated in a mixture of oil, vinegar, and whole allspice. Moroccans use it in tagines, slow-cooked stews made in a clay pot, and in the Middle East it is a key ingredient in kibbeh, a dish made with bulgur and chopped meat.

Mexicans use it to spice chocolate, a custom that goes back to the ancient Mayans, and it is a key ingredient in racado rojo, a ground spice mixture and popular condiment in the cuisines of Puerto Rico and Mexico’s Yucatan. In the United States, it is most commonly used in desserts and is the ingredient that gives pumpkin pie its distinctive flavor. It is the secret ingredient (along with chocolate) in “Cincinnati-style” chili, named after the town that claims to have more chili parlors than anywhere else in the United States.

Allspice is native to Jamaica.

Allspice never quite attained status as a coveted spice in Europe, although the Germans make good use of it. They use it to flavor fish and meat dishes and in making sausages. It is one of the four spices in the French mix quatre épices . The English are fond of it in fruited pastries, and the Scandinavians depend on it for making pickled herring. Those little dark balls you see in jars of pickled herring are not pepper, as commonly believed. They are allspice. Columbus wasn’t the only one to be fooled by Mother Nature.

How to Buy Allspice

Allspice is the only spice native to the Western Hemisphere. Though it is indigenous to Jamaica, the pimento tree can be found growing wild in the rainforests of South and Central America. Few remain, however, because most were cut down for their berries and efforts to resow them have been difficult.

Making allspice is the leading industry in Jamaica, and Jamaican allspice is considered superior to the spice produced in Guatemala and other nations in Central and South America.

Allspice may help prevent and/or treat:

High blood pressure

(hypertension)

Menopause problems

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Allspice pairs well with these spices:

Almond

Black pepper

Cardamom

Cinnamon

Clove

Cocoa

Cumin

Garlic

Ginger

Mint

Mustard seed

Nutmeg

Onion

Oregano

Turmeric

and complements recipes featuring:

Chocolate

Curries

Fruit pies and puddings

Game

Lamb

Mulled cider or wine

Nuts

Picked vegetables,

fruits, and fish

Rice pilafs

Seafood

Caution: Allspice is an irritant to the skin and can cause a skin reaction in people with eczema. If using pimento (allspice) essential oil, make sure it is well diluted in another oil.

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Other recipes containing allspice:

All-American Chili con Carne

Apple Pie Spice

Berbere

Chesapeake Bay Seafood Seasoning

Cocoa Rub

Coconut Meatballs with Peanut Sauce

Grilled Lamb Patty Pockets with Cucumber Mint Sauce

Jamaican Jerk Marinade

Mulling Spice

Pickling Spice

Ras-el-hanout

Spiced Mixed Nuts

Yucatan Pickled Red Onions

If you’ve visited Cozumel, Cancun, or any of the other resorts along Mexico’s Yucatan peninsula, you’ve probably come across this relish sitting on tables in restaurants with other condiments. It goes with all kinds of Mexico foods, but you can use it like any onion dressing, including as a topping for hot dogs and burgers. You’ll get the most flavor by buying whole allspice, rather than ground, and grinding the spice yourself in small batches. You’ll definitely notice the difference if you do a lot of baking.

1 medium red onion, peeled and thinly sliced

8 black peppercorns

1 teaspoon toasted cumin seeds

10 allspice berries

½ teaspoon dried Mexican oregano or otheroregano

3 cloves garlic, minced

½ teaspoon salt

½ cup white vinegar

1. Place the onions in a medium saucepan, cover with water, and bring to a boil. Drain immediately and rinse with cold water to stop the cooking. Pat the onions dry and put in a glass or ceramic bowl.

2. Put the black peppercorns and toasted cumin seeds in a spice grinder and coarsely chop them. Transfer to a small bowl. Break the allspice berries between your fingers and add to the ground spice. Add the oregano, garlic, and salt and mix together. Add the vinegar and pour the mixture over the onions.

3. The onions will be pickled in 24 hours and will keep for two weeks in the refrigerator.

Makes about 2 cups.

Whole allspice has a long shelf life and will keep for several years in a dry, dark place. Once ground, allspice will gradually lose its robust flavor, so don’t make more than you will use in a few months.