Three office workers in Victoria, British Columbia, got more than they bargained for last week when a colleague brought some chocolate brownies in to share. A brief visit to hospital wasn't the only trip for three of them that afternoon when it transpired the brownies had been spiked with cannabis, baked and frozen a year previously by their generous co-worker's inexplicably forgetful son.

Even without the addition of an illegal substance many foods have psychotropic qualities, some more frequently exploited than others. In 1946, prior to his conversion to Islam, Malcolm X was serving time in Charlestown prison. In the early years of his incarceration, Malcolm X, like so many other convicts of the time, found escape in the most apparently unlikely place - a penny matchbox full of nutmeg. In The Autobiography of Malcolm X he wrote: "I first got high in Charlestown on nutmeg. My cellmate … bought from kitchen worker inmates penny matchboxes full of stolen nutmeg … stirred into a glass of cold water, a penny matchbox full of nutmeg had the kick of three or four reefers."

Malcolm X isn't the only influential figure to have experimented with the spice, either. William S Burroughs, renowned writer and "psychonaut", included nutmeg in his Afterthoughts on a Deposition, making reference to its less desirable side-effects: "results are vaguely similar to marijuana with side effects of headache and nausea … I have only taken nutmeg once." Richard Rudgley, in his Encyclopedia of Psychoactive Substances, also makes reference to jazz saxophonist Charlie "Bird" Parker with relation to the spice, quoting a session musician: "Bird introduced this nutmeg to the guys. It was a cheap and legal high. You can take it in milk or Coca-Cola."

Nutmeg's long and storied history could fill pages of newsprint, but it isn't the only psychoactive food that we come across on a regular basis. Sarpa salpa, a species of sea bream now found in British waters, occasionally accumulates a powerful psychoactive compound called indole in its head, which can lead to ichthyoallyeinotoxism, or hallucinogenic fish poisoning. Suffering from ichthyoallyeinotoxism is not dissimilar to some aspects of LSD, but with the significant difference that the hallucinations can last for days rather than the more manageable average effective period of acid - around 12 hours.

Still, it's hardly unheard of for fish to have a darker side. More surprising, perhaps, is the well-documented occasional hallucinogenic effect of rye grain. A staple of the health food movement, rye grain is eaten widely though northern and eastern Europe and rye breads such as pumpernickel are considered to be healthier than other breads thanks to their high fibre content and low fat levels.

However, rye is the grain most susceptible to the ergot fungus, also part of the genus Claviceps. Ergot is the fungus from which the precursor to LSD is derived and the cause of the medical condition ergotism, also known as St Anthony's fire, which causes hallucinations and convulsions. The fungus also acts as a vasoconstrictor, reducing blood circulation, resulting in intense burning sensations and even the loss of limbs through gangrene.

It's been suggested that the consumption of ergot-infected grains is a possible explanation for the Salem witch trials and other accusations of bewitchment. Lindda R Caporael, a professor at the Science and Technology Studies Department at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in New York was the first to suggest ergotism as a medical explanation for bewitchment in 1976.

In the journal Science, she pointed out that many of the side-effects of ergotism correlate with contemporary accounts of bewitchment - convulsions, crawling sensations in the skin, tingling in the fingers, psychosis and delirium were all described as symptoms of enchantment as well as ergotism - and some of the more famous cases, such as those at Salem, were documented in areas high in rye grain production and with climates perfectly suited to the ergot fungus.

The theory remains a subject of debate, with other historians and anthropologists arguing that ergotism would have been sufficiently well-known at the time to have been recognised as such and that the cases would not have been on an individual-by-individual basis, but rather we'd see accounts of whole households being "bewitched".

Whether rye grain was to blame for the witch trial hysteria or not, the last recorded case in Europe was in 1954 and the chances of an ergotism outbreak in the developed world are now next to zero. Spare a thought, though, for those in less wealthy countries. Outbreaks of ergotism have occurred in Ethiopia as recently as 2001 and it's still a potential risk in areas where people eat a lot of grain when there is a combination of moist weather, cool temperatures and a delayed harvest.

Of course, as the Canadian office workers in last week's news now know, some exotic ingredients turn the chance of a bit of an extra kick into a certainty. Former wild child chef Allegra McEvedy included a recipe for cannabis fudge in her book Colour Cookbook. Her recipe calls for the drug to be added either as pounded leaves or ground with nutmeg and cinnamon to create a "sticky, spicy" treat.

The recipe was derived from the Alice B Toklas Cookbook, written by the long-term companion and muse of writer Gertrude Stein, and in all probability was served to the likes of Ernest Hemingway, Picasso and Thornton Wilder - all visitors to the couple's cultural salon.

More recently my own father, wine writer Graham Harding, discovered a recipe for "weedwine" on a now-defunct US website and included it in his Wine Miscellany. The recipe calls for a combination of cannabis, citrus fruits and sweetener - either honey or sugar. Using this process the active ingredient of cannabis, tetrahydrocannabinol or THC, dissolves into the alcohol as the mix ferments. Therefore, the effectiveness of the concoction depends entirely upon the concentration of THC in the raw material.

One unusual ingredient that one needn't worry unduly about is the bizarre asparagus powder devised by Bubble Food and intended to be insufflated. Though some organisations, notably the onerously named Cannabis Skunk Sense, accused the dish of glamorising drugs it has no psychoactive effect whatsoever - you'd be more likely to get high eating a slice of rye toast.