Well-Seasoned

pot pie or add some sparkle to your stew. Thanks to centuries of international trade and exploration, spices once only available in specific countries are now found throughout the world, allowing people to discover flavors that they never could have dreamed of before. But not everything in the kitchen has been good for us. Some spices have been right dangerous, including one you might have in your pantry right now. We typically see and taste the ground up version of

this spice, which is part of the genus Myristica. The tree it comes from, Myristica fragrance produces two spices from its fruit. Mace is cultivated from the seed covering, but the seed itself is sprinkled into everything from pumpkin pies to the occasional meatloaf. I'm talking, of course, about nutmeg. It's a spice noted for its strong fragrance and reddish brown color. Asian countries such as China and India have

used nutmeg and their cooking for thousands of years. It is believed that China was among the earliest nations to grow nutmeg outside of the Indonesian islands of the Banda Sea. In the early fifteen hundreds, as Europe was exploring the rest of the world, nutmeg was one of the many spices brought back for trade and consumption. Portuguese General Alfonso Day Albuquerque traveled to Southeast Asia in fifteen eleven. His targets the city of Malacca, which was a major Asian

trade center at the time. He took it over and placed it under control of the King of Portugal before learning of a series of islands just off the coast. He sent several ships to investigate, and when they got there, his men discovered a treasure trope of spices. They loaded up their ships with mace, nutmeg, and clothes, all of which were brought back to Portugal and spread throughout Europe. One years later, the Dutch East India Company set their

sights on Banda and massacred the local population. Out of fifteen thousand indigenous people living there, only a thousand survived. The rest were murdered, starved, or captured and sold as slaves. Few managed to get away, and all of this was done so that the Dutch could build a monopoly on the nutmeg trade. Unsurprisingly, the British also made their way to Banda and for a short time took control. Nutmeg trees were uprooted and moved so the spice could be

grown in colonial health countries. Since then, nutmeg has gone from a spice mostly found in Asia to a commodity sold in grocery stores all over the world. But was a time when nutmeg wasn't just for putting on your egg nog at Christmas. For example, it was used as medicine by those living on the Arabian Peninsula. They would mix it with things like juice from the quince fruits

to alleviate stomach problems or other minor ailments. Doctor has also found that consumption of fresh ground nutmeg in high enough doses could trigger psychoactive effects such as hallucinations. Around nineteen sixty, nutmeg was being used in animal testing to calculate how it behaved as a drug. Scientists noted a variety of results, including trouble walking, slower reflexes, and pupil dilation.

Two adult humans died after experiencing severe drowsiness brought on by nutmeg ingestion, and the cause of these effects is a compound called myristas in and how the body breaks it down. That process affects the central nervous system in a similar way to LSD, causing dizziness, hallucinations and a spike in the brains nor epinephri in response. Take enough nutmeg and you could find yourself on one heck of

a trip lasting as much as two days. But ing too much of the earthly spice and that trip can turn bad quickly. In fifteen seventy six, a pregnant english woman eight about twelve nutmegs to get herself drunk. Hers became the first recorded case of nutmeg poisoning. Since then, more cases have been reported, especially during the drug fueld sixties and seventies. Sadly, those affected most by nutmeg poisoning have been teens and younger adults. Looking for a cheap

and easy alternative to harder substances like marijuana. No substance, though, is inherently good or evil. Cocaine used to be taken in small doses and was considered medicinal. It was even part of the original coca cola recipe, but eventually it's devastating effects were too great to ignore, and it was officially declared illegal in the United States in nineteen fourteen. Will nutmeg follow the same path. It's doubtful, but anything's possible.

For now, It's probably best to use measuring spoons when dealing with such a potent and flavorful spice, and maybe don't drink so many eggnogs. It doesn't matter if a volcano hasn't erupted in a hundred years or ever. For that matter, its existence within spitting distance of a major metropolitan area is caused for concern for the people who live there. After all, it may never go off, but there's always the chance right Take Sitka, Alaska, for example.

Sitka was originally colonized by Russian explorers in sevent They had named the city fort of Archangel Michael, but that settlement was destroyed a few years later. By the Tinglet the indigenous people living there. After days of fighting, in August of eighteen o four, the Russians forced the Tinglet to surrender and new Archangel was formed on the same spot. It became known as the capital of Russian America. In the background of all that violent turmoil was Mount Edgecombe.

But Mount Edgecombe wasn't just a mountain. It was actually a dormant, previously active volcano, rising three thousand, two hundred feet out of the ground west of the city. It's hard to miss on a bright sunny day, it's perfectly visible, with its snow covered peak blending into a grayish brown hue halfway down. And of course, because it was active in the past, the residents of Sitka have always lived with a kind of weariness about it going off again.

The last thing they'd ever want is to see plumes of smoke shooting out of its center. So they must have been terrified when they noticed exactly that happening in the spring of nineteen seventy four. Looking out their windows, they watched as waves of black smoke billowed out of the old volcanoes central event. This was it. The day had finally come. The massive volcano in the distance, looming over Sitka ominously for thousands of years, was finally going

to pop and destroy everything in its path. The Coastguard called in a helicopter to swoop over the site and see what was going on. They also sent a whale boat to investigate closer to shore. Minutes later, a transmission from the chopper pilot came in over the radio. He hadn't seen lava crawling down its sides, nor burbling magma in the center of the pit. All he had seen was a flaming pile of tires and a spray painted sign that read April Fool. The whole ordeal had been

nothing but a joke. It's mastermind, Sitka shop owner Porky Oliver Bicar, who had woken up early that April first with a song in his heart and a plan in his head. Porky had actually chartered three separate helicopters to help him pull off his dastardly scheme, but when they heard what had entailed, they all declined to participate. He wound up recruiting the help of his friend and local bar owner Harry Sulzer, who knew a guy with a helicopter who loved Porky's idea and wanted to pitch in.

While he waited for his flying chariot to arrive, Porky got to work making two rope slings capable of holding about fifty car tires each. He also collected fuel for the fire, like stern and diesel oil, as well as oily rags and a bunch of smoke bombs. Once the helicopter finally arrived, Porky and several of his buddies all put their supplies on board and flew over the center of the volcano. They dropped the tires in first, then

the chopper landed to let them out. They poured oil and stern o all over those tires before spray painting April Fool in fifty foot letters directly onto the snow. Porky then lit the spark and watched as his creation went up in a blaze of glory. The f a, a controller guiding the chopper home, was reported to have said, the son of a gun looks fantastic, but the coast Guard commander hadn't been in on the joke, hence his request to have his own helicopter and a whale boat

investigate the smoke. He had even called his admiral in Juno about it. Sitka radio phone lines and police lines were inundated with calls from citizens wondering if this was really happening. The vice president of Alaska Airlines called the city and asked that the plane currently departing the airport fly over the volcano so passengers could get a good look at Porky's prank. Not everyone, though, was happy about the joke, but Porky sure was. He had fooled them all.

In fact, he had done such a good job of it that, according to some stories, after Mount St. Helen's erupted in, one of Porky's neighbors wrote to him and told him, this time you've gone too far. I hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet of Curiosities. Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, or learn more about the show by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com. The show was created by me Aaron Manky in partnership with How

Stuff Works. I make another award winning show called Lore, which is a podcast, book series, and television show, and you can learn all about it over at the World of lore dot com and until next time, stay curious ye