7 ms·

No Spice More Superior: Pepper

43 points by diodorus 8y ago

eutropia 8y ago
I sometimes look at my spice cabinet in awe, or down at my eggs when I crack pepper over them and think "people used to die for this." As a side note, its interesting how similar pepper's preparation is to coffee (in the harvesting, husking, drying process)
- oliTwist23 8y ago
  Yea, think about it. One of the ancient global trade drivers!
- brink 8y ago
  I do the same thing while looking at a system on a chip; a $9 item today would have been worth millions just 30 years ago.
- tomp 8y ago
  On the other hand, saffron is still ridiculously expensive (or at least the shops often price it like that).
  - abtinf 8y ago
    It is very expensive relative to other foods, and certain varieties of Persian saffron are extremely expensive. It is also extremely inefficiently used by most chefs. They often merely crumble it into the recipe. You can use a small amount of saffron to flavor a large quantity of food simply by grinding it into powder and mixing with a small amount boiling hot water. The resulting mixture is very potent.
  - munificent 8y ago
    Most spices were expensive because distance and perishing. Faster travel and refrigeration fixed that. Saffron is expensive because takes an insanely large volume of arable land and manual labor to produce. A saffron crocus plant flowers once per year. It produces about four flowers, and each has three tiny threads of saffron. They are harvested by hand. To produce a pound of saffron requires about 50,000-70,000 flowers and 40 hours of manual labor.
  - grawprog 8y ago
    To be fair saffron is the stamen and stylr of Crocus sativus. There's only a few per flower and they only bloom in Autumn.
- fermienrico 8y ago
  Same with Cardamom. I still find the lack of Cardamom in the west weird. It is such an incredible spice yet Americans are obsessed with Cinnamon in their sweets. Cardamom goes really well with sweet stuff.
  - KozmoNau7 8y ago
    Cardamom is widely used in Scandinavian sweet baked goods, especially around Christmas. I also occasionally add a pod when I make a cup of tea.
    - wink 8y ago
      I'd even go as far as saying this is one of the reasons. From January people are kinda fed up because in Nov/Dev everything tastes like it. At least in my circle of friends sooner or later someone says "this tastes like Christmas" - which is usally an indicator of Cardamom, unless very much hidden in e.g. Indian food.
  - lowtolerance 8y ago
    Agreed, cardamom has an amazing flavor that works in savory or sweet applications. No idea why it’s so underrepresented in western cuisine.
abtinf 8y ago
It’s interesting to think about how recent the massive increase in quality and variety of food really is. Imagine you were the wealthiest person living in New York City in the 19th or even early 20th century. Your diet would be unbelievably bland. Very few ethnic cuisines, very few spices available, and overall food quality was horrendous due to lack of industrialization, sanitation, and processes that hadn’t been invented yet. And that doesn’t even get into the consequences of the lack of refrigeration and refrigerated logistics. It is a stunning achievement that we can eat raw vegetables year round, with such a high confidence in safety that every contamination incident is national news. The modern salad is a tribute to man’s genius and capital investment.
- VerDeTerre 8y ago
  While I suspect that's largely true, I was intrigued by the article about "The Great Sushi Craze of 1905" that appeared a few years ago (http://eccentricculinary.com/the-great-sushi-craze-of-1905-part-1/ http://eccentricculinary.com/the-great-sushi-craze-of-1905-p..., https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10003510 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10003510). It offers a minor counterpoint and also suggests access to and curiosity about foreign cuisines can wax and wane.
simulate 8y ago
Slate columnist Sara Dickerman wrote a critique of pepper as a table spice a few years ago, while acknowledging its historical medicinal qualities, as the OP does: > Why should this brawny spice be kept on the countertop at all? Why not stash it in the rack with the fennel seed, the mustard seed, and the cinnamon—all the wonderful spices that add life to our food but are by no means all-purpose? I think we’d appreciate pepper's qualities all the more if we used it just for specific dishes, not universally. http://www.slate.com/articles/life/food/2012/01/salt_and_pepper_why_are_they_always_together_.html http://www.slate.com/articles/life/food/2012/01/salt_and_pep...
- abtinf 8y ago
  I like having pepper in a shaker on the table because it improves every food I add it to. But it hasn’t occurred to me that might just be a weird bias. Instead of hiding pepper away on the spice rack, why not bring more spices to the table? Get 5 or 6 more salt shakers, fill them with additional spices, put them on the dining table, and try them with different foods. Could be a fun way to learn more about flavors when cooking at home.
  - aethertap 8y ago
    I have a spice blend that I made for flavoring beans that has kind of become a new staple at the table. It's about half tomato powder, maybe a quarter hot red chile powder, and equal parts cumin, onion powder, garlic powder, and oregano for the balance. I'm thinking about switching some of the chile powder out for chipotle to see how that goes for the next batch. Two teaspoons in a bowl of beans makes some nice ranch-style beans, but we've been using it in lots of other places as a shake-on spice (eggs are particularly good). It's a pretty decent dry rub for meat on the smoker or grill too.
  - ghaff 8y ago
    If you mean literally a shaker, I'd highly recommend getting a grinder even if it's one of those disposable ones built into the bottle. One of my pet peeves (#FirstWorldProblems I know) is restaurants, especially those at the mid- to high-end, with pepper shakers.
RosanaAnaDana 8y ago
Nutmeg still king imo.
m3kw9 8y ago
That is why a great pepper grinder is a very good investment in your kitchen. The classic Peugeot grinder is the one to get.
wenc 8y ago
As stated in the article, the "piperine" compound in pepper has been observed to increase bioavailability of other compounds we eat. It's been studied in the context of curcumin (from turmeric), which is an anti-inflammatory.
justifier 8y ago
if you like pepper i would recommend trying the green variety, it is delicious and rarely in peoples spice cabinet
madengr 8y ago
I much prefer Sichuan pepper corn. I don’t know if it’s even related to black pepper.

43 points by diodorus 8y ago

I sometimes look at my spice cabinet in awe, or down at my eggs when I crack pepper over them and think "people used to die for this." As a side note, its interesting how similar pepper's preparation is to coffee (in the harvesting, husking, drying process)

oliTwist23 8y ago
Yea, think about it. One of the ancient global trade drivers!
brink 8y ago
I do the same thing while looking at a system on a chip; a $9 item today would have been worth millions just 30 years ago.
tomp 8y ago
On the other hand, saffron is still ridiculously expensive (or at least the shops often price it like that).
- abtinf 8y ago
  It is very expensive relative to other foods, and certain varieties of Persian saffron are extremely expensive. It is also extremely inefficiently used by most chefs. They often merely crumble it into the recipe. You can use a small amount of saffron to flavor a large quantity of food simply by grinding it into powder and mixing with a small amount boiling hot water. The resulting mixture is very potent.
- munificent 8y ago
  Most spices were expensive because distance and perishing. Faster travel and refrigeration fixed that. Saffron is expensive because takes an insanely large volume of arable land and manual labor to produce. A saffron crocus plant flowers once per year. It produces about four flowers, and each has three tiny threads of saffron. They are harvested by hand. To produce a pound of saffron requires about 50,000-70,000 flowers and 40 hours of manual labor.
- grawprog 8y ago
  To be fair saffron is the stamen and stylr of Crocus sativus. There's only a few per flower and they only bloom in Autumn.
fermienrico 8y ago
Same with Cardamom. I still find the lack of Cardamom in the west weird. It is such an incredible spice yet Americans are obsessed with Cinnamon in their sweets. Cardamom goes really well with sweet stuff.
- KozmoNau7 8y ago
  Cardamom is widely used in Scandinavian sweet baked goods, especially around Christmas. I also occasionally add a pod when I make a cup of tea.
  - wink 8y ago
    I'd even go as far as saying this is one of the reasons. From January people are kinda fed up because in Nov/Dev everything tastes like it. At least in my circle of friends sooner or later someone says "this tastes like Christmas" - which is usally an indicator of Cardamom, unless very much hidden in e.g. Indian food.
- lowtolerance 8y ago
  Agreed, cardamom has an amazing flavor that works in savory or sweet applications. No idea why it’s so underrepresented in western cuisine.

abtinf 8y ago

It’s interesting to think about how recent the massive increase in quality and variety of food really is. Imagine you were the wealthiest person living in New York City in the 19th or even early 20th century. Your diet would be unbelievably bland. Very few ethnic cuisines, very few spices available, and overall food quality was horrendous due to lack of industrialization, sanitation, and processes that hadn’t been invented yet. And that doesn’t even get into the consequences of the lack of refrigeration and refrigerated logistics. It is a stunning achievement that we can eat raw vegetables year round, with such a high confidence in safety that every contamination incident is national news. The modern salad is a tribute to man’s genius and capital investment.

VerDeTerre 8y ago
While I suspect that's largely true, I was intrigued by the article about "The Great Sushi Craze of 1905" that appeared a few years ago (http://eccentricculinary.com/the-great-sushi-craze-of-1905-part-1/ http://eccentricculinary.com/the-great-sushi-craze-of-1905-p..., https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10003510 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10003510). It offers a minor counterpoint and also suggests access to and curiosity about foreign cuisines can wax and wane.

simulate 8y ago

Slate columnist Sara Dickerman wrote a critique of pepper as a table spice a few years ago, while acknowledging its historical medicinal qualities, as the OP does: > Why should this brawny spice be kept on the countertop at all? Why not stash it in the rack with the fennel seed, the mustard seed, and the cinnamon—all the wonderful spices that add life to our food but are by no means all-purpose? I think we’d appreciate pepper's qualities all the more if we used it just for specific dishes, not universally. http://www.slate.com/articles/life/food/2012/01/salt_and_pepper_why_are_they_always_together_.html http://www.slate.com/articles/life/food/2012/01/salt_and_pep...

abtinf 8y ago
I like having pepper in a shaker on the table because it improves every food I add it to. But it hasn’t occurred to me that might just be a weird bias. Instead of hiding pepper away on the spice rack, why not bring more spices to the table? Get 5 or 6 more salt shakers, fill them with additional spices, put them on the dining table, and try them with different foods. Could be a fun way to learn more about flavors when cooking at home.
- aethertap 8y ago
  I have a spice blend that I made for flavoring beans that has kind of become a new staple at the table. It's about half tomato powder, maybe a quarter hot red chile powder, and equal parts cumin, onion powder, garlic powder, and oregano for the balance. I'm thinking about switching some of the chile powder out for chipotle to see how that goes for the next batch. Two teaspoons in a bowl of beans makes some nice ranch-style beans, but we've been using it in lots of other places as a shake-on spice (eggs are particularly good). It's a pretty decent dry rub for meat on the smoker or grill too.
- ghaff 8y ago
  If you mean literally a shaker, I'd highly recommend getting a grinder even if it's one of those disposable ones built into the bottle. One of my pet peeves (#FirstWorldProblems I know) is restaurants, especially those at the mid- to high-end, with pepper shakers.

RosanaAnaDana 8y ago

Nutmeg still king imo.

m3kw9 8y ago

That is why a great pepper grinder is a very good investment in your kitchen. The classic Peugeot grinder is the one to get.

wenc 8y ago

As stated in the article, the "piperine" compound in pepper has been observed to increase bioavailability of other compounds we eat. It's been studied in the context of curcumin (from turmeric), which is an anti-inflammatory.

justifier 8y ago

if you like pepper i would recommend trying the green variety, it is delicious and rarely in peoples spice cabinet

madengr 8y ago

I much prefer Sichuan pepper corn. I don’t know if it’s even related to black pepper.