Green and Red!
Black and White!
...... Guess what I am talking about?
Traffic signals and newspapers....?
Pshychedelic lights and Old photographs......?
Ha ha, none of the above.
This post is about the world’s most traded spice, the king of spices –
Black Pepper. Once known as ‘Black Gold’
, pepper was used as currency during the
Roman Empire. The elite Romans had
acquired a taste for this tongue-tingling spice and ships laden with pepper
would sail the seas from the Malabar coast of India, traverse some part of the
route by land and finally reach the great Empire of Rome.
Apparently the Roman
Philospher ‘Pliny the Elder’ has been documented to have complained that there
is no year in which India does not drain the Roman Empire of fifty million sesterces! WOW That must have been a lot of money in those days!
The first pepper season after we moved to the farm was indeed very exciting for us. We watched with awe as the pepper plants
flowered – thin, delicate looking white flowers that ultimately grow into the
beautiful green berries.
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| Delicate Pepper Inflorescence |
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| Tender green pepper |
We feasted on
tender green pepper in brine and waited eagerly for ‘Harvest day’. How do you decide when exactly is the pepper
ready for harvest? Well the green
berries actually start ripening on the vine and turn a brilliant attractive
red. And when a few of them on each
plant start ripening, you know it is time to harvest them. The berries are
clumped around a central stem and the entire clump is called a ‘Spike’. Each pepper vine bears anything between 10 to
probably a 500 spikes depending on the age and health of the plant. Each spike of
pepper is hand plucked into a basket. A precise tug in the right direction is
what is needed. I ended up breaking parts of the vine initially, got my nails
all dirtied trying to snip it off with my thumbnail, wasted a lot of time
trying to use a cutter, while Vivek and our farm hand steadily worked their way
up their ladders, their baskets filling up with green and red spikes of pepper.
So each day in the second fortnight of January, our front
yard has heaps of the pepper berries. The next task is separating the berries
from the central stem. The traditional method of stamping them with bare feet is
the tried and tested and quickest way to do it. The red berries are to be
separated by hand first and then the spikes are placed in a large sacking on
which one has to trample around. Easy
though it looks, it is quite a task!
Those berries that have turned red, are squishy soft, but
with a hard centre seed. This hard centre seed is the exotic ‘White
pepper’ used in French and other
continental cuisine. So once the reds are separated, they are soaked in water overnight. Next day a brisk rubbing and several washes later the
seeds are ready to be sun-dried to get good quality white pepper. So that is how the
reds turn to white!
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White Pepper |
As for the rest of
the green berries, the trampling action separated most of the berries from the
spikes. The spikes are separated out and
the berries are subjected to a hot water soak for a few minutes, drained and the sun-dried to turn them into the wrinkled
‘black pepper of commerce’. And that is
how green turns to black!
The hot water soaking also
helps to remove any impurities, bits of the stem etc. So then, the last task is to separate the very small pepper
– from the regular sized ones. We do this with a sieve, and the small ones,
small they may be, but they sure pack a punch, are stored separately to turn
into fragrant pepper powder whenever we need.
And the medicinal benefits of pepper are surely worth a
mention. It aids digestion, has
anti-inflammatory properties, contains anti-oxidants and helps clear a runny
nose and sore throat.
Here is a simple recipe for a herbal tea (Kashaya) which
works wonders on a runny nose and sore throat –
One small onion (preferably white) sliced lengthwise.
3-4 Tulsi leaves.
2-3 Ova leaves.
A small piece of ginger crushed.
A pinch of turmeric.
3-4 Black peppercorns freshly crushed
A small lump of jaggery.
Boil all the above ingredients in a cup of water until reduced to 3/4th cup. Drink
it hot.
And remember the active ingredient – the health benefitting
essential oil – piperine is volatile, so store your peppers in airtight bottles
and as far as possible, use freshly ground pepper.
So the next time you reach out for pepper to add to your
cooking, remember the myriad benefits of this little seed!
