Black pepper, Spice
Black pepper (Piper nigrum) is a flowering vine in the family Piperaceae, native to India. It is extensively cultivated throughout the tropical regions for its fruit, whch is usually dried and used as a spice. Vietnam is the world's largest producer and exporter of pepper, providing about 34% of the crop. The pepper plant, 4 m tall, is a perennial woody vine growing on supporting trees, poles or trellies. The vine is a spreading vine, taking root where trailing stems touch the support. The leaves are simple with entire margins, alternate, 5-10 cm long, and 3-6 cm broad. The small flowers are produced on pendulous spikes, 4-8 cm long, at the leaf nodes. As the fruit matures, the spikes lengthen to 7-15 cm long. The fruit is a drupe, 5 mm in diameter, dark red in color when fully mature, and contain a single seed. When dried, it is known as peppercorn. Peppercorns and the powdered pepper is simply known as black pepper, white pepper, or green pepper. Black pepper is processed from the still-green unripe fruits of the pepper plant. The fruits are cooked briely in hot water, to clean and to prepare them for drying. The cell wall of the pepper ruptures on contact with heat, speeding the work of browning enzymes during drying. The layer around the seed shrinks and darken into a wrinkled, thin, black layer. Once dried, it is known as black peppercorn, which is spicier than the white peppercorn. White pepper is the seed of the fruit minus the darker colored skin. Fully ripe peppers are soaked in water for about a week, in a process called retting. During the process, the flesh of the pepper softens and decomposses. Rubbing will remove whatever that is remain on the fruit, to expose the naked seed which is then dried. The removal of the outer layer from the seed, can be done through mechanical, chemical or biological methods called decortication. Green pepper is also made from unripe drupes, just like the black pepper. The unripe fruits are treated with sulfur dioxide, canned or freeze-drying, to retain the green color. Unripe drupes preserved in vinegar or brine is known as pickled peppercorns. Orange or red pepper are ripe red pepper drupes preserved in vinegar and brine. Ripe red pepper can also be dried using the treatement with sulfur dioxide, canned or freeze-drying. Pepper gets its spicy heat compound from piperine, found both in the outer fruit layer and the seed. Black pepper contains odor-contributing terpenes, which give citrusy, woody, and floral aroma, which are missing in white pepper. However, white pepper can gain different odors from its longer fermentation stage. In order to longer preserve pepper's original spiciness, it is advisable to store pepper in airtight container, to avoid losing its flavor and aroma through evaporation. Pepper can also loses its flavor through exposing to light and exposed ground form.  Green pepper, white pepper and black pepper Author: Rainer Zenz (Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported) | ||
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