“Pepper is small in quantity and great in virtue” Plato 

Black pepper is such a common pantry item these days, it may be hard to believe
it was once so valuable that it was used as currency.  Sure, we take it for granted but the vast majority of savory spices include some kind of form of black pepper
as an ingredient.

Therefore, pepper is ranked as the third most added ingredient to recipes. Alone
or in combination with other spices, pepper is much loved all over the world for spicy meat stews, steaks, sauces and all kind of vegetable dishes.
 
Expert chefs insist in saying that to get basic ground black pepper, one must begin with whole peppercorns, not as commonly used nowadays, but definitely a culinary experience extraordinaire !

Origin

Peppercorns are the seed berries of the Piper nigrum (where piper means plant
in Latin and nigrum means black) vine originating on the Malabar coast of India.  Peppercorns are not only the oldest but also the most widely-used spice.  It appears that this spice was found more than 4 000 years ago and that it was cultivated as long as 1000 B.C.  And did you know that pepper was considered so valuable that unscrupulous suppliers often mixed in mustard husks, juniper berries and even floor sweepings and ground charcoal to stretch its value.

Afterwards, pepper rea-ched South East Asia more than two thousand years ago and is grown in Malaysia and Indonesia since about that time. Actually, the most important producers are India before Indonesia, which together account for about 50 % of the whole production volume.  Moreover, Indonesia was producing the essential
of pepper until the XXth century.

Some politics events did disturb the spice’s production.  Effectively, the Indonesia pepper as passed from 12 millions feet to 150 000 after World War II.  At that date, a general spice’s crisis incited the cultivation of pepper in new zones as well as the research of substitute products.
  
Today, pepper, known as the King of Spices and the Master Spice, still accounts for one-fourth of the world’s spice trade.  Americans consume, just behind the Tunisians, about one-quarter pound of pepper per year.

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