PEPPER, a name applied to several pungent spices known respectively as black, white, long, red or cayenne, Ashanti, Jamaica and melegueta pepper, but derived from at least three different natural orders of plants.
Black pepper is the dried fruit of Piper nigrum (family Piper aceae), a perennial climbing shrub indigenous to the forests of Travancore and Malabar, from whence it has been introduced into Java, Sumatra, Borneo, the Malay peninsula, Siam, the Philip pines and the West Indies. It climbs on tree-trunks by roots in the same way as ivy, and from its climbing habit is known as the pepper vine. It is one of the earliest spices known to mankind, and for many ages formed a staple article of commerce between India and Europe. Tribute has been levied in pepper ; one of the articles demanded in 408 by Alaric as part of the ransom of Rome was 3,000 lb. of pepper, and its exorbitant price during the middle ages was one of the inducements which led the Portu guese to seek a sea-route to In dia. The discovery of the passage round the Cape of Good Hope led (1498) to a considerable fall in the price. Pepper remained a monopoly of the Portuguese crown as late as the 18th century. In Great Britain it was formerly taxed very heavily, the impost in 1623 amounting to 5s., and as late as 1823 to 2S. 6d. per pound.
The largest quantities of pep per are produced in Penang, the island of Riouw and Johore near Singapore. Singapore is the great emporium for this spice in the East, the largest proportion being shipped thence to Great Britain. The varieties of black pepper met with in commerce are known as Malabar, Aleppy or Tellicherry, Cochin, Penang, Singapore and Siam.
, Pepper owes its pungency to a resin, and its flavour to a volatile oil, of which it yields from 1.6 to 2.2%; it also contains a yellow crystalline alkaloid, called piper ine, to the extent of 2 to 8%, which has the same empirical formula as morphine, but differs in constitution and properties. The only use of black pepper is as a condiment.
White pepper differs from black only in being prepared from the ripe fruits. These, after collection, are kept in the house three days and then bruised and washed in a basket with the hand until the stalks and pulpy matter are removed, after which the seeds are dried. It is, however, sometimes prepared from the dried black pepper by removing the dark outer layer. It is less pungent than the black but possesses a finer flavour.
Long pepper is the fruit-spike of Piper officinarum and P. longum, gathered shortly before it reaches maturity, and dried. The former is a native of the Indian archipelago ; the latter is indigenous in the hotter provinces of India, Ceylon, Malacca and the Malay islands.
Ashanti or West African pepper is the dried fruit of Piper Clusii, a plant widely distributed in tropical Africa, occurring most abundantly in the country of the Niam-niam. It differs from black pepper in being rather smaller, less wrinkled, and in being attenuated into a stalk, like cubebs (the dried unripe fruits of P. Cubeba), to which it bears considerable resemblance ex ternally. The taste, however, is pungent, exactly like that of pep per, and the fruit contains piperine. It was imported from the Grain Coast by the merchants of Rouen and Dieppe as early as 1364 and was exported from Benin by the Portuguese in 1485. In tropical Africa it is extensively used as a condiment.
Melegueta pepper, known also as "Guinea grains," "grains of paradise" (q.v.) or "alligator pepper," is the seed of Amomum Melegucta, a plant of the ginger family. (See also CAYENNE PEPPER.)