I've caught this guy a couple of times while channel flipping. I don't care for food shows generally, but this guy is whacko, he brings in extraneous info, and he's pretty entertaining.
I was watching an episode about pickles this evening and this blurb comes up on the screen about how back in the 1300's the Europeans wiped out half of southeast Asia in their quest for nutmeg. That seem's a little extreme and a heck of long time ago, is there any truth here? Well,
the Dutch did pretty much wipe out the population on one small island in the 1600's. So I maybe I got it wrong.
These islands were the sole source of nutmeg until the Brits got ahold of them when Napoleon overran Holland. Then they took and transplanted complete trees all over their empire, which is why you can buy nutmeg at the corner store now. So if it hadn't been for Napoleon, you would have to mortgage your house (probably to a Dutchman) in order to buy a 2 ounce tin.
Update June 2019 corrected spelling of Napoleon.
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