SC -

[Philip & Susan Troy]

snowfire at mail.snet.net wrote:
> 
> -Poster: Jean Holtom <Snowfire at mail.snet.net>
> 
> Where does pepper come from? And is it period?

Oh, yeah. Big time. It's the mainstay of ancient Greek and Roman
cookery, and even turns up in Roman desserts. Well, sweet dishes, anyway.
> 
> The reason I ask is because since soming to this country when the word "pepper"
> (unspecified) is called for in a recipe or to season a dish, it seems black pepper
> is used mostly. (New fashion? or not).
> 
> Yet in Wales and everywhere in Britain I've been, "pepper" always meant white
> pepper.

Perhaps we both are assuming the product we're most familiar with to be
the standard period article, but black pepper seems to be the norm here,
unless white is specified for certain dishes where it is deemed more
appropriate. Some Asian cookery (mostly Chinese and Japanese) seems to
call for white pepper, because it is sharper yet lighter and clearer in
flavor (watch out or I'll start doing winespeak ;  )  ), while some
other countries' foods seem to call for black.  Basically because the
outside "fruit pulp" layer is removed, white pepper is the pure seed,
with a slightly higher proportion of what you buy pepper for. Stronger
yet less complex. I'd say that in French cookery black pepper and white
are mostly used alternately according to the color of the dish being
cooked: white pepper for bechamel or a pale veloute sauce, etc., black
for venison dishes, that sort of thing. Some cooks will feel a strong
preference for using white pepper only (possibly because they have only
one pepper mill?), I myself would use black exclusively if I had to
choose, and a few specks of black pepper really don't bother me in a
whitish food. 

> 
> These days, of course, black pepper is used too, but tradionally it's always been
> white.

I think (but don't know for sure) that the tradition is not of hugely
ancient standing, maybe a couple of hundred years, and probably borrowed
from the French.
> 
> What does that do for period recipes?  Is there no appreciable difference except
> beng able to see the pepper if it's black?  Or for authenticity should you always
> use white then?

I believe there are some sauce recipes which describe the sauce as being
good and black with pepper, while not specifying the type of pepper,
except sometimes to distinguish round pepper from long pepper. I also
believe black peppercorns are shown in the Tacuinum Sanitatis. I'll try
to take a look later on, though. 

I believe peppercorns, of whatever variety, BTW, are originally from
Indonesian islands like Java and Sumatra, IIRC.

Adamantius
- -- 
Phil & Susan Troy

troy at asan.com
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