Many different types of pepper; black, white and more.
- Pepper is a vine that flowers and produces fruit, peppercorns, that are simply referred to as pepper.
- Cooked and dried, unripe peppercorns makes black pepper; dried unripe peppercorns makes green pepper; and dried peppercorn seeds makes white pepper.
- Pepper is native to South and South-East Asia, most notably India.
- Dried peppercorn is most often used as a spice, and out of all known spices, peppercorn is traded the most.
- The chemical piperine is responsible for the peppercorn’s spice.
- Oil and pepper spirit, which is used in beverages such as Coca Cola, can be extracted from peppercorn when dried.
- Pepper vines grow up to 4 metres (13 feet) in height and produce numerous pepper drupes (berry fruit) on long curvy shaped spikes on the stems of the plant.
- Peppercorn was discovered rammed up the Egyptian Pharaoh Rameses II’s nose (1213 BC).
- Historically, pepper was said to cure many health problems, from earaches to heart and lung diseases, and it is still sometimes used in modern times for medicinal purposes.
- Vietnam, the world’s biggest producer of pepper, produces 34% of the world’s pepper products.
Bibliography:
Black Pepper 4 March 2013 , Wikipedia, <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_pepper>
Very interesting. Very informative.