Cracking into the Culture: Black Pepper’s Rein on Society

Written on April 26, 2017

 I’m sitting at a purple dining room table topped with hand woven placemats and a decorative wooden tray that’s packed with candles and trinkets. My gaze falls through a 32” x 44” opening in the wall that looks into a tiny, South End home kitchen. The window is lined with dried lavender, hand painted ceramic measuring spoons, artisanal votives from Europe, and a Delft 17th-century Dutch woman proudly standing atop a cheese plate. The quirky décor follows into the kitchen, where my good friend preps her meal for the night: steak and potatoes. 

Marisa Dellatto, 21 of Boston, is an amateur chef who only cooks for herself. She grabs an intentionally weathered, red casserole dish and places it on the stove next to her copper kettle. “Cooking has always been a part of my life,” she shared. “Really everyone can cook in my family, and every event revolves around food so I kind of just learned from being around it. Just sitting at the counter you kind of subconsciously catch on.” She seasons her sirloin with garlic powder, salt, and black pepper- almost a take on the French classic steak au poivre, but not quite. Replicating this dish was not her goal; she was simply doing what her mother taught her to do. She welcomed me into her kitchen to discuss one ingredient she rarely (if ever) leaves out: black pepper. 

Salt and pepper are the duo everyone loves but nobody talks about. A quick flip through any cookbook or food magazine and you’ll see their prevalence in almost every savory dish. The history of salt is a common one. It was used as a method of preservation and a form of currency; it’s a spice we need and have evolved to use (in some cases) in excess. But, peppercorn… that’s a story often left untold. 

The peppercorn we know and love comes from the fruit (drupes) of the Piper nigrum plant native to India, Southeastern Asia, and the East Indies. The perennial vine grows on trestles, poles, or nearby trees and develops spikes that form the drupes. Once these drupes are harvested and dried, they become black pepper. 

“All pepper is picked when it’s green and then it’s dried and it turns to black pepper,” noted Clair Cheney, spice curator and owner of Curio Spice Co. in Cambridge. Her shop is filled with international spices packed in beautifully vintage tins, bringing character to something many deem mundane and usual. Spices line the open shelving mounted on the shop’s walls along with traditional tools like mortar and pestle. She explained that the frequently overlooked white pepper undergoes the same process as black pepper, but has the outer skin removed. White pepper is most commonly used in lighter-colored dishes containing ingredients such as potatoes, pastas, and fish. “But you can actually let it ripen on the vine and turn a bright red,” Cheney added. “If you pick it and dry it once it’s red, you get a much sweeter, more chocolatey flavor from the peppercorn.” Consuming the pepper in its unripe (green) state barely presents a peppery flavor at all, instead tasting more vegetal and “green.” These are often brined and used as a garnish on top of meats/fish. 

Pepper was power. In 400 BC, pepper was mentioned for the first time in classical Greek writings. During this time, it was the conventional spice of the Indian Ocean trade, proving very valuable amongst the Greeks and Romans. Due to it’s worth, monopolies were held over the trade routes and traders fabricated stories or the hardships endured to collect the spice. The middle leg was controlled by Middle Eastern traders well into the medieval times, and coastal Italian-cities like Venice- took the reins of Europe’s access to pepper. 

Pepper was wanted by everyone, and the high prices set by Italians promoted its luxury status. European countries tried to evade these expensive prices by sending their own explorers out into the seas. The most notable tale of this attempt is Christopher Columbus, who landed in the Americas and brought back chili pepper rather than reaching India and returning with peppercorn. After the American Revolution, the US entered the playing field of global spice trading with Salem, MA becoming the black pepper hub. With more fleets on the water and explorers tapping every new mass of land they could, new regions naturally growing peppercorns were discovered. Thus, supply and demand evened out 

Cheney believes that this variety of the spice is the real luxury. “One really great aspect of having different varieties of black pepper from different origins is it allows the opportunity to talk about terroir,” she said. “A lot of people understand terroir as a concept for wine and chocolate and coffee, but I don’t think it’s something people would necessarily think about when they’re using spices.”

Chef Avery Perry, head chef at Nella Pasta in Boston, relies on black pepper for all of his dishes. I caught up with him on a Friday afternoon, right after his lunch rush. He stood at his prep-station surrounded by vegetables (chopped, minced, and whole) getting ready for dinner. When I initially asked to speak with him about black pepper, his eyes lit up. “Salt and pepper are the basic fundamentals of cooking, hands down.” He chuckled as his next thought popped into his mind, all the while chopping celery with ease and not missing a beat. He added, “Without peppercorn, we’re only halfway there!” He proceeded to dump one cup of freshly cracked black pepper into a pot of bubbling bolognese. 

In America, most of the black pepper on the market is pre-cracked, which diminishes the spices quality dramatically. Once peppercorn is cracked, the smell and flavor lose potency as time passes. This leaves little to no room for the consumer to truly pay attention to what the experience of black pepper should be like. Dellatto mentioned that her family only buys whole peppercorns and cracks them for immediate use. This attention to detail and consciousness around treating spices well is something Cheney heavily notices in her customers. Buying fair trade, whole peppercorns not only tastes better, but better supports those actually growing and cultivating the spice. Cheney’s work involves personal relationships with Cambodian farmers, something not all mainstream spice companies in the US have. Customers at Curio Spice Co. often feel as though they’re experiencing black pepper for the first time upon their visit. Cheney said, “I have a lot of people who are just like, ‘Oh you’ve spoiled me, now I can only eat that pepper.’ So that’s really something.” 

Cheney sources her peppercorn from Kampot, Cambodia, a city known for its peppercorn plantations and salt fields. It’s here, during her first visit, that she fell in love with black pepper “in a new way”. Customers have the same experience when entering her shop; the smell of this carefully curated black pepper is very distinct. A big whiff of it fills your nostrils with a tingly sensation accompanied by notes of flora, wood, and spice. What’s more captivating than the aroma is this pepper’s story. The 1975 Cambodian genocide caused extreme devastation to pepper plantations. The Khmer Rouge regime wanted nothing to be grown except rice. “That was a real devastating loss, but the jungle regrew and peppercorn sprouted back up. People started cultivating it again and in this specific part of Cambodia it’s a unique microclimate that creates a special type of peppercorn. Some French chefs decided it should be protected and it was given a European Protective Designation of Origin- the first for a spice.” A PDO certification ties the product to the environment it’s produced in. By classifying a food to a specific region, the EU is assigning its terroir. 

This modern respect for spices reflects the values past cultures have placed on them. “I think [black pepper] adds a lot of depth to stuff,” Dellatto began. “They way I eat revolves around (the American version of) the Mediterranean diet. I don’t put dressing on my salads; it’s just olive oil, salt, and pepper,” said Dellatto. “The olive oil adds a floral flavor, while the salt adds the extra crunch and smack. Pepper adds the boldness, the richness, and a little bit of spice.” She goes on to compare her love of black pepper to dark chocolate and espresso, hints of an amateur chef noting the terroir in the spice without even realizing she’s doing so. 

By now, pepper is a way of life. Those of us raised with it in our food can almost immediately distinguish when it’s missing from a dish. Chef Perry notes, “It’s just one of those things that’s universally loved- universally used in all kitchens. Even people that can’t do spice can still do pepper.” While the love for it might not be so innate, the ability to appreciate it seems to be so. “I put black pepper on everything,” said Dellatto. “I used to not like [black pepper] that much, but as I’ve gotten older I’ve acquired it. I’m really sensitive to spicy foods so pepper is my limit.” 

As the chef said himself, black pepper is internationally adored, and has been for centuries. The ancient Roman dish cacio e pepe has remained a staple in Italian kitchens (bot professional and amateur) for centuries. The recipe is simple, with the sauce being made of nothing more than pasta water, parmigiano, and peppercorn. While they’re no cacio e pepe, Chef Perry serves two dishes at Nella where black pepper is the main attraction: cracked black pepper pasta and lemon zest with peppercorn. “The lemon pepper, especially when we do it as a fettucini, is a hit- people flock to it. It’s one of our most popular flavors.” 

At the end of our interview, Dellatto retired back to her quirky kitchen. We talked a bit more about the way she seasoned her entrée; she began to tell me how sometimes she ditches salt overall and only uses pepper. “Salt is replaceable,” she said. “You can find that flavor in plenty of other additives.” She started cleaning up the mess she made earlier in the evening, grabbing her pepper mill to store in the cabinet as if putting a child to bed for the night. “If you don’t have pepper in the house, I don’t know what you would use to replace it.”