Mélange Travel & Lifestyle Magazine APRIL 2019 | Page 294

Cocoa, Kuchela, and Nutmeg
at the Belmont Estate
by Shana Jones | Read her blog at www.roamingaviatrix.com
A
s the jeep
stumbles along
the uneven dirt
road, I struggle
to steady my camera.
Everywhere, the scene
is the same: thick, bright
green foliage stretching
upwards to embrace a
warm afternoon sun. We
stop to look at a funny-
looking plant: a bulb
covered in soft crimson
needles. She crushes the
delicate seeds between
her fi ngers and they
instantly turn blood-red.
“It’s used for food colouring
and lipstick”, she says. “She”
is Shadel Nyack Compton, owner of Belmont
Estate, a historic fully-functioning plantation in
Grenada, and grandchild of the fi rst East Indians
to own such a property on the island. The jeep
stops again and my gaze wanders around our
destination: a virtual Eden of nutmeg trees
bearing the little yellow globes scarcely visible
in all the greenery. Nutmeg is the major export
of Grenada, the “Spice Isle”, and Belmont’s
grounds yield plenty.
“No”, says Mr. Williams, an
Estate employee, “Like this.
Move this hand further up.” We
are standing beneath a leafy
canopy of nutmeg trees deep
inside the plantation grounds,
he positioning my hands on
a long bamboo pole and me
twitching under the silent
attack of an invisible sandfl y
army. The pole’s two-pronged
tip is for plucking nutmegs
from the branches overhead,
but the art of it eludes me.
Mr. Williams laughingly takes
the stick and plops a few
to the ground with a quick
tug. My eyes light up at the
striking contrast between the
dull yellow outer fruit and brilliant red mace
wrapped around the dark brown nutmeg shell;
at that very moment, the sweet, gentle aroma
rises to envelop us, and I remember that people
actually use nutmeg shells to aromatize their
gardens. Harvested nutmegs are sent to the
island’s processing facilities and eventually
shipped to other countries or converted into
an array of products from muscle relaxers to
condiments.
PC Frederick Christian
Opening a nutmeg for the fi rst time