History of pepper in the spice trade
History of pepper in the spice trade
Learn about black pepper (Piper nigrum): how it is produced, its history in the spice trade, the use of its berries (peppercorns) in food, and the compounds that give black pepper its pungency.
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Transcript
TODD BRETHAUER: When I'm talking about pepper, yes, I mean the pepper on the kitchen table in hundreds of millions of homes around the world. We don't even think about it, it's so common. 500 years ago it was worth its weight in gold, it was so rare. In fact, it was used as currency in some areas.
In 1492, the profits that were being made in the spice trade were incredible. They were controlled by a monopoly of some Italian city-states. And one of the reasons that Columbus was sent west by Ferdinand and Isabella was so that Spain could get its share of the profits being made in the spice trade.
At that time, pepper made up 90%, by volume, of the spice trade. It was the big moneymaker. And people who worked with it, sailors and dockworkers, had their pockets sewn shut to keep them from stealing it.
Pepper is a vine. It's native to the southwest coast of India, in the Western Ghat mountains, in the modern Indian state of Kerala. The pepper flowers are arranged on a spike with as many as 100 flowers on a single spike. In the next eight months, the pollinated flowers produce their fruit.
We harvest the green pepper berries. They dry and ferment in the sun for four or five days. And the skin and the pulp shrivel and adhere to the seed, and that's the black pepper of commerce. The primary pungent principal of pepper is the alkaloid piperine. It makes up between 5% and 10%, by weight, of the black pepper.
Contributing to the aroma and flavor of pepper are a series of chemicals we call terpenes that are made up of the five carbon basic building block of much of plant biochemistry, called isoprene. Tie two of them together to give a 10 carbon unit, you form limonene, the fragrance on lemons. Link three of them together and you get the flavor of ginger. Link eight of them together and you start developing color that gives us the brilliant oranges of carrots and the reds of watermelons and tomatoes.
In 1492, the profits that were being made in the spice trade were incredible. They were controlled by a monopoly of some Italian city-states. And one of the reasons that Columbus was sent west by Ferdinand and Isabella was so that Spain could get its share of the profits being made in the spice trade.
At that time, pepper made up 90%, by volume, of the spice trade. It was the big moneymaker. And people who worked with it, sailors and dockworkers, had their pockets sewn shut to keep them from stealing it.
Pepper is a vine. It's native to the southwest coast of India, in the Western Ghat mountains, in the modern Indian state of Kerala. The pepper flowers are arranged on a spike with as many as 100 flowers on a single spike. In the next eight months, the pollinated flowers produce their fruit.
We harvest the green pepper berries. They dry and ferment in the sun for four or five days. And the skin and the pulp shrivel and adhere to the seed, and that's the black pepper of commerce. The primary pungent principal of pepper is the alkaloid piperine. It makes up between 5% and 10%, by weight, of the black pepper.
Contributing to the aroma and flavor of pepper are a series of chemicals we call terpenes that are made up of the five carbon basic building block of much of plant biochemistry, called isoprene. Tie two of them together to give a 10 carbon unit, you form limonene, the fragrance on lemons. Link three of them together and you get the flavor of ginger. Link eight of them together and you start developing color that gives us the brilliant oranges of carrots and the reds of watermelons and tomatoes.