Black pepper (Piper nigrum)
PIPERACEAE Pepper Family
The Old World pepper was, and continues to be, one of the premier spices. This was one of the first, if not the first, spice traded between the East and the West, and it was certainly well known to the ancient Greeks and Romans. Peppercorns were used for a period as currency in certain European countries, and many wealthy of Renaissance Europe owed their fortune to black pepper.
Pepper stimulates salivation and the production of gastric juices. The active ingredients in pepper are terpenes (volatile oils), alkaloids, a resin, and some vegetable oils. Plant geographers believe that Piper nigrum is native to the Malabar Coast of southwestern India, where there are still wild plants in the western Ghats.
At the store you will find black pepper and white pepper, which actually come from the same plant. Black pepper is the dried, immature fruit (a drupe). White pepper is made from the inner portion of mature fruits; the outer covering is removed by retting the fruits in gunny sacks in slow-running water to permit the bacteria to loosen the outer pericarp. White pepper is slightly different in flavor, but its main selling point is that it is light and can be used for special occasions as a contrast to dark-colored foods. Actually, black pepper has light flecks (particles of the inner fruit) mixed in with the darker particles of the outer pericarp.
Black pepper is produced on vines. The plant is propagated from vegetative cuttings, and it is often interplanted with shade trees, especially tree crops such as coffee (Coffea). This plant requires high temperatures (28-35 degrees C), heavy and well-distributed rainfall (>2500 mm over 8-10 months), and a well-drained soil with much humus and high water-holding capacity (not too acid). The best places for growing pepper are now India, Sarawak in Indonesia, and Brazil.
A related species, Piper betel, the betel pepper, is a very important plant in the Old World tropics, especially in the islands of the Pacific Basin. Betel pepper is mixed with betel nut (a palm fruit) as a masticatory, chewed by natives from Tanzania eastward. You will remember that in "South Pacific" Bloody Mary was always "chewing betel nuts." Other species of Piper are used, e.g., P. auritum is employed for capturing and flavoring fish in Panamá, and P. methysticum has rhizomes and roots used throughout the South Pacific for a beverage called kava, used to promote community fellowship and said to have soothing or sedative effects.