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How Mauritius Became a Spice Island
Not one spice on this island is native to it. Every plant in our garden arrived by ship, in somebody’s luggage or somebody’s pocket — and the story of how they got here is the story of Mauritius itself.
An empty island on the sea road
Mauritius had no people on it at all until the 1600s. No villages, no farming, no cooking tradition — and no spices. What it had was position: a green island with fresh water and a safe anchorage, sitting on the long sea route between Europe and the East.
Everything that is now Mauritian came off a boat. That includes the food.
The Dutch, and the first cane
The Dutch settled the island in 1638, named it after Prince Maurice of Nassau, and brought in the crop that would decide everything afterwards: sugarcane, carried from Java. They also brought slaves from Madagascar and the African mainland, and the first domestic animals.
They abandoned the island in 1710. The cane stayed.
Pierre Poivre and the stolen nutmeg
Under the French, the island became Isle de France, and in 1767 an intendant named Pierre Poivre arrived — a name that translates, almost too neatly, as Peter Pepper.
At the time the Dutch held a monopoly on nutmeg and clove and defended it fiercely. Poivre sent expeditions to the Moluccas and brought seedlings back to the botanical garden at Pamplemousses. Breaking that monopoly is the single act that turned this island from a staging post into a spice island, and the garden he planted is still there.
Four migrations, one spice cupboard
The British took the island in 1810. After slavery was abolished in 1835, indentured labourers began arriving from India in very large numbers — the arrival depot at Aapravasi Ghat is now a UNESCO World Heritage site — and with them came cumin, coriander, turmeric, fenugreek, mustard seed and the whole grammar of masala.
Chinese traders brought their own ingredients and techniques. Malagasy and African families had already shaped what was cooked here. The French left the roux, the baguette and the habit of good bread.
Four migrations, one kitchen. That is why a Mauritian Sunday lunch can contain a curry, a rougaille, a chatini and a farata without anyone finding it strange.
What the route left behind
The result is a spice tradition that belongs to nowhere else. Mauritian masala is not an Indian curry powder and not a colonial blend — it is its own ratio, worked out in island kitchens over generations, leaning on coriander and cumin with turmeric and chilli behind them.
Combava, curry leaf, lemongrass, ginger, thyme and cinnamon all grow here now as if they had always been here. In our garden you can see most of them within a few steps of each other, which is the shortest version of this entire history you will ever get.
Six spices and their passage here
Every one of these grows in our garden. None of them started here.
Turmeric
From South Asia, with the indentured families. The colour of almost every Mauritian curry, and the plant that survives cyclone season better than anything else in the bed.
Clove
From the Moluccas, by way of Poivre’s expeditions. One of the two spices the Dutch monopoly was built on.
Nutmeg
The other one. Smuggled out of the same islands and planted at Pamplemousses in the 1770s.
Coriander
The backbone of Mauritian masala, and the reason our blend tastes rounder and less sharp than an Indian curry powder.
Combava
Kaffir lime, arriving from Southeast Asia. Dried and grated, it is the smell most Mauritians associate with home.
Lemongrass
Also from the east. Boiled for tea, used for fever, and still growing at the edge of the vegetable alley.
Continue exploring
Come and see it today
MUR 200
Museum, grinding demonstration, herbal tea and the boutique.
MUR 375
Museum, ancestral kitchen, spice garden, hand-grinding and tastings. Children MUR 200.
Thu – Tue
Last entry 17:00. Free onsite parking at the gate.
Visits begin at 09:00, 11:00, 13:00, 15:00 and 17:00, every day except Wednesday. Book to hold your place and we will be expecting you — or simply turn up and join the next one. Full detail on the visit page.