To most cooks, the humble peppercorn is still worth its weight in gold
OF ALL the distinctly flavoured seeds, barks, roots, fruits and leaves that we hoard in our cupboards, pepper is the most widely used. No plant since the apple in Eden has had a larger, more telling effect on human history than the black pepper vine.
Wars have been fought, kingdoms overthrown, unknown oceans braved, and continents discovered, all for the sake of peppercorns. In medieval times a pound of pepper was equal in value to a pound of gold, and good old Attila the Hun was wise enough to demand 300 pounds of pepper when he handed over his ransom note for the City of Rome.
The English in 1783, ever swift to spot a seriously advantageous barter, struck a bargain with the Rajah of Travancore by which the English would supply large quantities of arms and ammunition to his royal highness, in return for his annual harvest of peppercorns. Back in England a wealthy merchant would, instead of boasting about how much his house was worth, instead would flaunt ownership of a substantial cache of peppercorns, huge sacks of the stuff were kept safe and secure in the basement of homes, and were treated in the same way as we value money in the bank.
Today, black peppercorns account for more than 40 per cent of the entire world’s spice trade. The actual pepper fruits are produced by a woody, broad leafed evergreen vine, which is cultivated in the West Indies, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, and South America. Peppercorns are actually the fermented dried, unripe red berries of the plant Piper nigrun. The same fruit when green and unripe, can be dried or preserved in brine or vinegar to make green peppercorns, or when ripe they are dried, and de-husked to make white peppercorns.
Other than the once deeply important use of being an aid to preserving meat days gone by, pepper also had a medicinal role to play, with the monks of the period using the fruits to concoct a digestive stimulant and expectorants for their patients, pepper was also used as a base ingredient in many ointments designed to relieve skin afflictions and the odd nasty rash.
It has also been found to be a pretty effective friend to gardeners acting as it does as a deterrent against insects and deeply unpleasant creepy crawlies from dining on your plants. The ‘magic’ formula in order to deter unwanted visitors from taking up permanent residency in your tomato, cucumber, or rose patch is: take one half teaspoon of freshly ground black pepper and mix this with quarter of a pint of warm water then spray onto the plants. This liquid is toxic to everything including ants, silver fish, moths and roaches, and just to give a bit of double indemnity to your garden, sprinkle ground black pepper onto any ant path and just watch them flee for their lives!
For hundreds of years physicians have advocated black pepper for the relief of chronic toothache. They suggest taking half a teaspoon of black pepper( freshly ground) half a teacup of boiling water, stir, then cover with a lid and simmer on a low heat for seven minutes. Let the mixture ‘steep’ keeping it covered all the time, for about 15 minutes, then strain. Rinse the mouth with small sips, holding the liquid in the mouth for a minute or two then spit it out. Voila!- no toothache, and as a by- product of the treatment your gums are seemingly so stimulated by the effect that they become extra perky and healthy as well (well, in the 12th century it seemed to work).
TALKING about terrific tasting pepper as both a condiment and as an alternative medical aid, the next thing one thinks about is when pepper really comes into its very own as a rich creamy piquant pepper sauce. We have managed to achieve a bit of a culinary coup, in that Christallo Costi has at long last given me her famous pepper sauce recipe. Mind you, she has been making this sauce both in her restaurant in South Africa and for her family and friends for so many years, like all good cooks she has long since forgotten actual measurements, she makes her magic solely by eye, and a goodly dose of experience, so this recipe is not in any way an exact science. Best try it and modify it to your own taste, but the important thing is do try it as its simply delicious – so good, in fact, that family members now request takeaways of the sauce to use not only as a perfect accompaniment for a sirloin steak, but it’s also used as a pasta sauce, or as a pour-over sauce to liven up cauliflower or any other rather bland vegetable dish.
Perky Pepper sauce
ala Christallo
1. Very finely chop a tiny amount (roughly 1tsp each of) onion, carrot, green pepper and red pepper.
2. Add half a chicken stock cube that has been diluted in a cup of hot water, and pour onto the vegetables,
3. Simmer until all water has been evaporated and the vegetables have been cooked.
4. Add 500ml of long life cream bring to the boil (but don’t burn) then simmer for 10-15 minutes.
5. Into a dry frying pan pour the freshly crushed peppercorns, dry fry in order to release their pungent flavour.
6. Pour peppercorns into the vegetable and cream mix, then add salt to taste, and gently heat the sauce again.
If the sauce turns out to be too runny then take one tbsp of flour and one tsp butter then knead these ingredients into a paste
and use a little (stirring constantly) until your sauce is thick enough
You can then pop this excellent thickening agent into the fridge, and use as a thickening agent in soups etc.
