and pepper
"What do we know about pepper? Peps up your food. Makes you sneeze. Was once a greyish powder sprinkled from a pot. Tends, these days, to be wizened black berries crushed in a grinder. Costs not much for a small jar at the supermarket." Jon Henley - The Guardian
All of the above is true, so let's see if we can find out a little bit more.
Salt and pepper go together like - salt and pepper - and tomorrow or someday soon I shall deal with salt and pepper dishes. But today it's the turn of peppercorns, (I'm not talking about peppers/capsicum here) which, like salt, is basic and becoming oh so fashionable. There are not quite as many types as with salt, but almost. One of which I really did not know about and one only marginally.
So briefly, the history. You can actually find a fairly detailed history in an article inappropriately entitled A Brief History of Pepper on the blog Today I Found Out. (Good title for a blog.) But in brief - like salt it has been a precious commodity but not for the same reasons as salt - which had practical reasons for its value - preserving food. Pepper was popular because of its taste. So popular it also was used as currency.
"pepper used to be as valuable as gold itself, and so expensive that crafty traders would bulk out its weight with mustard seeds, fruit stones, juniper berries and even charcoal." Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall
It was also so expensive that sometimes people were paid in pepper - from whence comes the phrase a 'peppercorn rent'. Nowadays that means a nominal rent that might be paid with something which is not money - just to hold on to the title. In days gone by the rent might literally have been in peppercorns. The crafty trade that Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall talks about began way back in Roman times when it was imported from Kerala in India - the home of the pepper vine - piper nigrum. These two beautiful botanical drawings show the plant and its fruit. If you click on them you get a bigger view. The plant is a vine. For centuries India seems to have had the monopoly on the growing of it, but these days it is grown all around the tropics with the largest producer being Vietnam.
But back in Roman times it was only India and so popular was the spice that vast quantities were imported, causing Pliny to moan about being held hostage by India. 80% of the recipes in the famous Roman recipe book by Apicius include pepper in their ingredients.
But after the fall of the Roman empire the Arabs gained a monopoly on the trade, and the towns of Venice and Genoa became the dominant middlemen. This all changed again when the 15th century explorers opened up new sea routes to the Indies. Indeed it can be argued that the opening up of the world and the realisation that it is round is all due to pepper (and other spices). It all changed again when the British Empire ruled the waves, but as the production of the spice spread and transport became much easier it gradually lost its high value and really was virtually taken for granted. Until now. Now the gourmets are moving in, sourcing peppercorns from different varieties of the principle plant as well as sourcing other types entirely. Like the salt you shouldn't be just looking for peppercorns, whether black, green or white, but peppercorns with a name - like Paradise, Penja White, Sarawak and Muntok. There are many more.
And before I move on to the varieties here's an interesting little fact I learned along the history route:
"In 1328, members of the Guild of Pepperers were registered as importers of spices in large, or gross, quantities and became known as grossarii, from which comes our word grocer." Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall - The Guardian
White, black and green pepper are all sourced from the original plant - or varieties thereof. It's the same fruit but treated differently. Black peppercorns are the green berries, dried either artificially or in the sun until wrinkled and black.Their taste probably varies according to when they are harvested. Green peppercorns are the green unripe fruit which is preserved in brine or vinegar. If they are dried they don't last very long. But you can find dried green peppercorns. Green peppercorns have a fresher, milder taste than the black. White peppercorns have been soaked to remove the outer skin. These also are milder and not much loved by the gourmets unless you need pepper in a light-coloured dish and do not wish to have black specks in it. I use it in my salad dressing I have to say. In powdered form too. Another no/no. I'm sure a true gourmet would grind all their pepper - if ground at all - at the last moment. Hence the flourish with which lots of Italian restaurants serve pepper from a massive grinder. But then I grew up with ground white pepper in a cardboard shaker and I obviously have not quite shaken that heritage off.
Pink peppercorns do not come from the pepper vine at all. They are from a tree- the Brazilian pepper tree - I think we have them here in Australia. Beware though if you are allergic to nuts because they are a sort of nut and have some of the same kind of chemicals that cause the allergies. They also are mostly dried although you can also buy them pickled like the green ones. They are valued for their prettiness and slightly sweeter and less spicy taste.
Then there is sichuan pepper, of which I was dimly aware but have never used as we are not big Chinese food eaters in this house. Also not from the pepper vine, but from a kind of ash tree. Only the husks of the berries are used. They are said to be citrussy and spicy.
And last of all there is long pepper.
They look a little bit like some types of immature pine cones to me.
Now this one I had never heard of and so far have not seen anywhere. Nigel Slater rhapsodises about it and says it's the best spice of all, so maybe I should be keeping an eye out for it. It comes from another kind of piper vine - well two different ones actually, so is closer to pepper as we know it, than the red peppercorns and the sichuan peppercorns. Apparently, like all the other peppers, it used to be popular way back in the glory days of the spice trade, but has disappeared from view in the west. But obviously canny marketers are about to pounce, and it may well become the next big thing. I have to say it sounds tempting:
"Its flavor is much more complex than black pepper, reminiscent of spice blends like garam masala more than a single spice. It possesses black pepper's heat and musk, but in a less harsh, more nuanced way, tempered by sweet notes of nutmeg, cinnamon, and cardamom. Its finish lingers on the tongue with a tobacco-like coolness; where black pepper stings, long pepper balms." Max Falkowitz - Serious Eats
So there you have it. Pepper. I bet most of us at least have a few grindings on our food. I'll do recipes that feature it in another post.
"Pepper adds glorious savour and vitality to all kinds of dishes, rounding out flavours and doing what all good seasonings should do - that is, make things taste more of themselves."
Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall
