Seed Pod Whole Fruit Water at 100 deg., 8.12 14.75 11.94 Albuminoids, 18.31 10.69 13.88 Fat (ether extract), 28.54 5.48 15.26 Nitrogen, free extract 21.33 38.73 32.63 by difference Crude Fiber, 17.50 23.75 21.09 Ash, 3.20 6.62 5.20 ──────────────────────────────────────────────────────── Total, 97.00 100.00 100.00 Nitrogen, 2.93 1.71 2.22 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ [Illustration: PIMENTO OR ALLSPICE 1 Garden Allspice 2 Wild Allspice] CHAPTER VIII PIMENTO, OR ALLSPICE WHAT’S in a name? That which we call allspice by any other name would have as fine a flavor. _Pimento officinalis_ (_Myrtus Eugenia pimenta_), an order of Jamaica Pepper (_Icasandria Monogyia_). _Pimenta vulgaris myrtaceae._ (These are names applied to the immature fruit of _pimento_.) Spanish name, _Pimento_. French, _Piment des Anglais Toute epice Poivre de la Jamiaque_. German, _Nelkenpfeffer_, _Nelkenkopfe_, _Neugewurz_. The pimento tree belongs to the myrtle family and is one of the most beautiful trees known as an evergreen. It grows to a height of from twenty to thirty feet and occasionally it reaches a height of forty feet. It is slender, straight, and upright, with many branches at its top. The trunk is covered by a smooth, gray, or ashen-brown aromatic bark which peels off in flakes as the tree grows. The leaves are opposite, stalked from four to six inches long, and are oblong, lanceolate, and somewhat tapering. The petioles are blunt and rather emarginated at the apex, and entire, smooth on both surfaces, with deep-green, pale, and minute glands, dotted beneath, with the midrib prominent. They are particularly aromatic when fresh, abounding in essential oil which is the aromatic property of all kinds of fragrant fruits. This tree is a native of the West Indies, and is found most abundantly on the limestone hills on the Island of Jamaica. It is the only common spice having its origin in the New World. It is found, but not in abundance, in most of the West India Islands, as well as in Mexico, Costa Rica, and Venezuela. It takes its name, pimento, from the Spanish word for pepper. This name was given to it by early explorers of the New World because of its resemblance to pepper corn. It is called allspice because of the combination, or of the supposed combination, of various flavors.