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Not to be sneezed at
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| SPICE GIRL: Pepper expert Christine McFadden |
EVERYONE has it in the kitchen cupboard, but no one seems to notice it. It is under our noses, at times up our noses, and at one stage in its long life it was more valuable than currency.
Dubbed 'black gold - king of spices', pepper is both ubiquitous and invisible. What inspired Christine McFadden to write a book about it?
"A number of things," explained Christine, who lives in Little Bredy, "I have been interested in hot, gutsy flavours and spices for a long time and pepper is one of the most important. Cool Green Leaves & Red Hot Peppers, which I wrote with Michael Michaud in 1998, is what brought me to Dorset; that's the one that developed my interest in hot, pungent food. Nowadays we all travel so much and then we come home and want to replicate what we have eaten abroad."
She added: "I also like writing about ingredients that have played a role in culture, commerce and cuisine in the history of the world. My previous books have been on coffee and chocolate, and pepper fits in with that. The thing with pepper is that it lost its popularity once coffee and chocolate came along."
In its heyday pepper was unquestionably the world's most valuable export, accounting for 70 per cent of the total spice trade. This heyday lasted from the Middle Ages well into the 18th century, but by then the market was saturated and pepper was losing its pulling power.
The oldest traces of peppercorns were found in the 3,000-year-old nose and abdomen of Pharaoh Ramses II when his mummified body was unearthed in 1886 at a burial chamber near Thebes. Pepper was widely used, explained Christine, for embalming procedures and medicine because of its antiseptic and antiviral properties.
She said: "There were several eras in which pepper was really important. It was important to the Romans who were the first to use it consistently in cooking; every Roman recipe starts with, 'Take pepper'. They were responsible for it coming through Europe with the expansion of the Roman Empire. In the Middle Ages, it achieved importance again because explorers could get their hands on it from India. It became the must-have ingredient. The more pepper a man had, the wealthier he was considered. Conversely, if a man 'lacked pepper', he was in financial trouble. The term 'peppercorn rent' really meant rent. Peppercorns were counted out and used to pay taxes, tolls, debts and dowries."
Christine's fascination with pepper was at least a couple of years old before it took her on a pilgrimage to the motherland of the plant. Food writer Rosemary Moon was keen to share the adventure with Christine, so the pair set out for Kerala in south west India, the home of pepper.
"It's absolutely famous for it," said Christine. "Fort Cochin was the famous port from where it was exported to Alexandria. My favourite pepper is Tellicherry, which comes from a place north of Fort Cochin. It's known for its size because it does not fit easily into pepper mills. Edward Shaw of Bart Spices in Bristol put me in touch with various people and various plantations."
One place that featured on their must-see list was the International Pepper Exchange that deals with the global trade of black pepper, the only pepper exchange in the world.
Christine said: "It looks just like a stock exchange - no one was there when we visited - but it used to be a sea of people trading in different languages. I had to take my shoes off as a sign of respect."
Christine's trip to India presented a steep learning curve. She said: "Before I went to India, I had no idea that peppercorns grew on a vine. I did not question it - I think because it is so common. Nor did I realise that green pepper, black pepper, white pepper and red all come from the same plant or vine."
As the book explains, the differences in colour and nuances of flavour are the result of processing methods and harvesting at various stages of ripeness. White pepper, for example, is the seed inside black pepper. While the seed itself has little aroma since the essential oils are located in the pericarp or husk, it - the seed - does contain piperine, the substance that makes pepper hot. Together, the seed and the shell create the familiar pungency and spicy aroma of black pepper.
Certain foods match pepper perfectly - steak au poivre, black pepper crisps, cream cheese and black pepper - but what does Christine recommend? "I use it on strawberries quite often when they do not have as much flavour as we would like," she said. "If you marinade them in sugar and lemon, warm them through and add black pepper, it adds a depth to them. I also make some pepper meringues using pink, white and green peppercorns; I pipe the meringues so they are shaped like breadsticks. Then I make pepper chocolate truffles and pepper chocolate ice-cream."
As for savoury dishes, Christine advises pepper on pumpkins and carrots. "They are intrinsically sweet - pepper balances out the sweetness. Then there is cacio e pepe, a classic dish in Italy, which is pasta with pecorino and black pepper."
Christine's book contains 100 or so recipes, giving pepper more than the bit part it has played over recent years. "It is more of a key ingredient in the recipes," she said. "If you look at cookbooks, you hardly ever see pepper mentioned. I thought it was time it came back into the limelight."
Pepper, published by Absolute Press, retails at £25.
10:03am Monday 17th March 2008
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