PEPPER IN HISTORY

Greymouth Evening Star, 22 March 1935, Page 12

PEPPER IN HISTORY

TOOK BRITISH TO I&DIA. - » ■ LONDON, February 5.

How many people, if asked, “What is pepper?” could give any more adequate reply than that concerned with its taste and appearance? The present market happenings, and the promise of consignments that will bring up our stocks to 20,000 tons, make fuller information interesting.

Pepper is one of the oldest spices known. Hippocrates used it as a medicine. Its high prices in the fifteenth century induced the Portuguese to find the sea route round the Cape of Good Hope, to India, which, at that time, had pepper as its greatest export. Indeed, it is possible that but for popper India might never have become a part of the British Empire. Tho action of Dutch merchants . in raising the price of pepper in the European markets from 3/- to 8/- per ib at the end of the 16th century led to the formation of the English East India Company to compete with them, ahd the granting of a charter by Queen Elizabeth in 1600. The peppercorn, which, when ground, gives us black or white pepper, grows on.a creeping vine, usually at its best in the moist heat of a lowlying tropical forest. When pepper is cultivated on a large scale it is a common practice to plant trees to support the creeper and provide Shade.

PREPARING FOR MARKET.

When the berries ore changing from green to red they are collected, and (dried in the. sun until they become black and shrivelled. Ground in this condition, they produce black pepper. If white is required the black skins are removed.

Black pepper is more pungent because of the presence of this dark skin. The pungency comes from a resin, and the flavour from the small percentage of volatile oil contained in the plant. Tho white pepper, though less pungent, has a finer flavour, But other plants help to provide what, is described under the general term of pepper. Red. or cayenne, pepper. is a species of capsicum. Regarded all over the tropics as a necessity. it in largely eaten in a fresh condition, and plays a large part in the preparation of curries and chutney?. Its sun-dried pods are ground into the red pepper of commerce. India, from the fifth century, and possibly earlier, had a monopoly of pepper exports, but lost its pre-emin-ence more than a century ago. The great bulk of our pepper is produced in the Empire, from which, in 1934, we imported more than a quarter of a million cwts. British Malaya sent 218,000cwts of this. Of 100,000 cwts. imported from foreign countries the Dutch East Indies contributed nine-tenths.