Pepper

England’s Prince Charles, in his role as Duke of Cornwall, is entitled to an annual payment of feudal dues, the terms of which date to a charter of 1,230-signed just 15 years after King John was coerced into putting his royal stamp of approval on the Magna Carta.

Ever since, the Duke, traditionally the eldest son of the reigning monarch, has been entitled to a yearly gift of a hunting bow, a pair of gilt spurs, two greyhounds, a load of firewood, and a pound of peppercorns.

This last was no shabby present. Pepper, for much of European history, was literally worth its weight in gold. Rome bought off both the Visigoths and Attila the Hun with pepper; rents and dowries were paid in pepper; judges were bribed with pepper. A medieval serf who managed to scrape together a pound of pepper could use it to buy his or her freedom.

The pepper that Europeans so valued was black pepper, the tongue-tingling fruit of Piper nigrum, a climbing vine native to southern India. In the 15th century, following the fall of Constantinople to the Ottoman Turks, trade routes to India and the Far East were disrupted, and the price of pepper skyrocketed. The appalling cost of pepper played no small part in the decision of Ferdinand and Isabella to fund Columbus’s dicey voyage to the west.

Photograph by Dennis Wilkinson, Creative Commons 2.0
Peppers and the New World

On January 15, 1493, Columbus made a note in his log about New World pepper: “There is also much aji which is their pepper and is worth more than our pepper, no one eats without it because it is very wholesome.” Dozens of varieties of peppers were grown by the natives of Central and South America. The Franciscan friar Bernardino de Sahagún, author of the General History of the Things of New Spain (1569), who spent more than 60 years in Aztec Mexico, made a stab at describing the extent of native pepper cuisine: it included, he wrote, “hot green chiles, smoked chiles, water chiles, tree chiles, beetle chiles, and sharp-pointed red chiles,” variously served up in such dishes as frog with green pepper, newt with yellow pepper, tadpoles with small peppers, grubs in pepper sauce, and lobster with red peppers, tomatoes, and ground squash seeds.

The New World peppers-unlike such suspicious foodstuffs as chocolate and tomatoes-were rapidly adopted by the Old. The Portuguese brought peppers to India in the early 16th century, where they became a prime component of curry; from there, they traveled farther east. Within 50 years of Columbus’s pepper-discovering voyage, American peppers were thriving in China and Japan.

New World peppers, despite Columbus’s deceptive name, have nothing to do with the Old World’s Piper nigrum. They are members of the Solanaceae or Nightshade family—relatives of tomatoes, potatoes, and eggplants—and belong, more specifically, to the genus Capsicum, a collection of some 25 species, five of which are cultivated by human gardeners. The name capsicum (used by the scientifically precise when talking about New World peppers) was coined in 1700 by French botanist Joseph Pitton de Tournefort, possibly from the Latin capsa (“box”), loosely based on the shape of the fruit, or from the Greek kapto (‘to bite”) from the effect of pepper on the human tongue.

Not all New World peppers are hot, but many are, and some are positively explosive. The pungency in black pepper is due to a spicy alkaloid called piperine; the zip, burn, or blazing scorch in New World peppers (often called chilies, from chilli, the Aztec word for pepper) is due to a chemical compound called capsaicin and assorted related capsaicinoids.

Capsaicin is mean stuff. In the form of pepper spray, joggers use it to fend off muggers, mail carriers use it to fend off dogs, and hikers use it to ward off bears. Ranchers smear it on sheep to discourage wolves; and gardeners use it to foil rabbits, deer, and squirrels. The Aztecs, in lieu of spanking, disciplined naughty children by holding them over piles of burning peppers.

Capsaicin: Torturing Your Tongue

Hotness in peppers is now analyzed using high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC), but the time-honored technique-first devised in 1912-called for human tasters and the Scoville Organoleptic Test. The test, devised by Wilbur Scoville of the Parke-Davis pharmaceutical company, involved soaking pepper samples in alcohol to leach out the capsaicin, then diluting the extracts in a sucrose solution to generate a series of “cordials.” Tasters, cautiously sipping, identify the weakest solution in which the hotness sensation is detectable. The more the extract had to be diluted before the hotness sensation disappeared, the hotter the pepper.

Pepper hotness is still routinely expressed in Scoville Heat Units (SHU). On the Scoville scale, rock-bottom is the bell pepper, which isn’t hot at all, and rates an SHU score of 0. The relatively peaceful poblano ranges from 500-2000 SHU; the feisty jalapeño, 2500-8000; and the mouth-blitzing habañero, 300,000-575,000. (There’s a range because capsaicin content varies with the environment; hotter temperatures, for example, make for hotter peppers.)

Peppers with Scoville scores above 500,000 are designated superhot—though in some cases, a better descriptor might be “apocalyptic.” The best-known of these mega-peppers may be the bhut jolokia or ghost pepper, a hybrid developed in India, the first pepper to top a million SHU. As of 2007, the bhut jolokia ruled the roost as world’s hottest pepper according to Guinness World Records. Eaters compared it to taking a bite of molten lava.

Since then creative breeders have come up with peppers that are increasingly hotter yet, among them the intimidating Naga Viper, topping out at 1,349.000 SHU, the appalling Trinidad Moruga Scorpion (2,009,231 SHU), and the horrific current champion, the Carolina Reaper (2,200,000 SHU). (Pure capsaicin rates 16 million SHU.)

The sensation of heat (or, in some cases, downright conflagration) that comes with eating a hot pepper results from a protein called the TRPV1 receptor, found on the surface of sensory cells. TRPV1 functions to keep us from getting scalded. Ordinarily it’s activated by temperatures above 109 degrees F, warning us when things are too hot to handle. Capsaicin, however, tricks TRPV1 into turning on at body temperature. In other words, capsaicin makes your brain think you’re being burned, even though you’re not. It just feels like it.

No Pain, No Gain

So what possesses us to subject ourselves to these organic incendiary bombs?

One theory holds that hot peppers make us feel good. When capsaicin activates heat and pain receptors in the mouth, this in turn triggers the release of endorphins-endogenous morphine-like substances that reduce stress and induce euphoria. It just may be that hot-pepper-eating gives even couch potatoes the equivalent of a runner’s high.

Alternatively, according to psychologist Paul Rozin of the University of Pennsylvania, our passion for hot peppers may be an example of “constrained risk”: that is, we like them for the same reason that we’re attracted to scary movies, bungee-jumping, and roller coaster rides. All give us an adrenalin-laced thrill of danger without actually doing anything dangerous.

In any case, hot-pepper-eating seems to be a passion that’s peculiar only to us. “Man,” points out psychologist Paul Bloom, “is the only animal that likes Tabasco sauce.”

What is Pepper?

The pepper plant is a perennial woody vine that is native to India, growing to four metres in height on supporting trees, poles, or trellises. It is a spreading vine, rooting readily where trailing stems touch the ground. The leaves are five to ten centimetres long and three to six centimetres broad. The flowers are small, produced on spikes four to eight centimetres long at the leaf nodes, the spikes lengthening to seven to 15 centimeters as the fruit matures. Pepper is the dried fruit of the flower and is extensively cultivated in Indonesia, Malaysia, Brazil, Madagascar and Sri Lanka.

The History of Pepper

It is a pungent spice and a stimulant and has been highly valued for centuries. European demand for pepper played a large part in finding sea routes to the spice growing east in the 15th century. Once the pepper got to the Roman ports it was traded ounce for ounce with precious metals. In the Middle Ages pepper was an accepted currency as it was ideal for trade because it does not deteriorate over time provided it was kept dry and out of sunlight, so, it was possible to pay rent, taxes and dowries with this spice.

Until well after the Middle Ages, virtually all of the black pepper found in Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa travelled there from India’s Malabar region.  By the 16th century, pepper was also being grown in Java, Sunda, Sumatra, Madagascar, Malaysia, and elsewhere in Southeast Asia, but these areas traded mainly with China, or used the pepper locally.

Once the British influence in India grew the East India Company took
over the pepper trade and the vast tonnage brought in on its ships reduced the price, turning it into an everyday item rather than a luxury. Pepper is neither savoury nor sweet and adds flavour and heat to cooking.

Types of Pepper

Black

Black pepper is produced from the still-green unripe pepper plant. The fruits are cooked briefly in hot water, both to clean them and to prepare them for drying. They are dried in the sun or by machine for several days, during which the pepper around the seed shrinks and darkens into a thin, wrinkled black layer. Once dried, the spice is called black peppercorn.

There are different types of black pepper:

Tellicherry Black pepper from South India  – The champagne of black pepper. Very bold, pungent aroma. Not for the fainthearted. Use where you want a very pronounced, lingering pepper flavour. Best in Indian food.

Sarawak Black from Borneo and Malaysia – Relatively mild with a fruity bouquet. Best suited to delicate flavours. Try grinding over fresh strawberries.

Lampong Black From Sumatra, Indonesia – Mildly pungent and aromatic. This is the one to use when making curry mixtures

White

White pepper consists of the core of a ripe fruit after the husk has been removed. This is usually accomplished by a process known as retting, where fully ripe peppers are soaked in water for about a week, during which the flesh of the pepper softens and decompsoses. Rubbing then removes what remains of the fruit, and the naked seed is dried. White pepper is sometimes used in dishes like light-coloured sauces or mashed potatoes, where ground black pepper would visibly stand out. There is disagreement regarding which is generally spicier. They have differing flavor due to the presence of certain compounds in the outer fruit layer of the berry that are not found in the seed.

One type of white pepper is:

Muntok white pepper is from Bangka Island, Indonesia. It is slightly musty with a smooth flavour. Tends not to linger on the palate and is good for soups and starters.

Green

Green pepper is milder than black pepper, but, like black, is made from the unripe fruits. Dried green peppercorns are treated in a way that retains the green colour. Fresh, unpreserved green pepper fruits, largely unknown in the West, are used in some Asian cuisines, particularly Thai cuisine. Their flavour has been described as piquant and fresh, with a bright aroma. They decay quickly if not dried or preserved. To preserve, unripe fruits are pickled in brine or vinegar before drying.

Red

Black, white and green pepper all comes from the same plant, red and pink pepper however comes from something else entirely.  It is also called “False Pepper” from the seed of an evergreen tree grown in South America. It has a sweet, piquant flavour, but is mostly used for its appearance.

Facts And Tips On Pepper

When using Pepper you should always use it freshly ground.
The flavour of pepper comes from the pepperin oils inside the corn. Once the peppercorn is ground the flavours are released.
In order to get the most flavour, the corn should be ground just prior to use. There are two ways to release the flavour one is by heat and one is by milling.
This is why it is possible to put whole peppercorns in a pepper sauce and still get the flavour without them being crushed. e.g. Fillet steak au poivre.
New industrial mills that grind pepper are internally cooled in order to retain as much flavour as possible in the ground pepper.
Pepper is treated as a commodity and is bought using a Spot-Buy method on the market.
The price depends on the how good the weather is for pepper cultivation and the demand for it.