What’s Cooking is a series in which I answer questions and share advice about food and cooking that you have but may be too shy to ask.
A friend living in the England was recently in the Caribbean vacationing with her family. They island-hopped and one of the places they visited was Grenada where she picked up a bottle of ground mace. Upon her return home, she wrote to ask how to use the mace she had bought.
What is Mace?
It is a spice. It’s the bright-red, lacy coating around the shell of a nutmeg seed. When it’s dry, the alien-like webbing changes colour becoming yellowish-brownish. The flavour profiles of mace and nutmeg are similar, however, mace is lighter and more floral with notes of citrus and cinnamon. It is for this reason that is works so well in a variety of sweet and savoury preparations.