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“The salt of existence is in the pepper that you bring to it.”
– Alphonse Allais, French author and journalist (1854-1905)
Pepper history
A Short History of Pepper and Pepper Mills
Black pepper is used so commonly as a seasoning today that it is hard to believe it once served as currency and was even an instrument of power almost as great as gold.
Pepper has a long history: it originated in India, has served as currency and has been used to pay taxes, dowries and even ransoms. Pepper was discovered more than 4000 years ago and cultivated 1000 years BCE. It reached Southeast Asia 2000 years ago was then cultivated in Malaysia and Indonesia.
The fruits of the piper nigrum, the piper longum and the piper cubeba are the peppercorns used as a spice. In France, by law, only pepper from the piper nigrum may bear the name “poivre”.
The third most common ingredient in recipes, it is used around the world to heighten the flavour of a variety of dishes, from appetizers to desserts. Irreplaceable in pepper steak, divine with strawberries drizzled with anise liqueur or vodka, magical on smoked fish, pepper is a culinary essential for any self-respecting epicure.
The Indispensible Pepper Mill
The world’s top chefs all agree: the best practice entails seasoning with whole peppercorns.
Pepper, whether black, green or white, contains piperine. Piperine is believed to have positive effects on blood pressure, and according to the Central Food Technological Research Institute, it promotes better digestion and accelerates gastrointestinal transit.
Alone or in combination with other spices, pepper is used around the world to enhance the flavour of stews, steaks, sauces and vegetable dishes of all kinds.
The world’s leading chefs all agree that for the best ground pepper, you have to start with the whole peppercorn.
Origins
Peppercorns are the seeds of the piper nigrum berry (Latin piper, plant, and nigrum, black), native to India’s Malabar coast. The spice was first discovered more than 4,000 years ago and has been cultivated since 1,000 BC.
Pepper reached Southeast Asia about 2,000 years ago, where it was grown in Malaysia and Indonesia. Today, India is still the world’s top producer of pepper followed by Indonesia: togehter, these countries produce more than half the pepper consumed around the globe.
In the twentieth century, spice production was disrupted by political events. The production of pepper in Indonesia shrank from 12 million square feet to 150,000 square feet after World War Two, which prompted new regions to grow pepper and spurred the search for pepper substitutes.
Today, pepper, known as the king of spices, represents a quarter of the spice market around the world. Americans are the world’s second-largest pepper consumers, behind the Tunisians, who eat a quarter-pound of pepper per capita every year.