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Peppered tales

BLACK GOLD Caroline Rowe is following the pepper route all the way to Idukki

Pepper brought the western world to our shores and continues to do so. The reasons now being quite different.

Independent scholar Caroline Rowe is in Kochi researching on the black gold, compiling interviews, research, recipes and tales for a book scheduled to be out early next year. She has penned an essay – ‘Pepper – meaning, money, magic and medicine’ to be presented at the Oxford Food and Cookery Symposium, the world’s biggest gathering of food buffs. The subject at the event is Food and Language.

One may ask, what is it about this ancient spice that we need to know hundreds of years after it being there? Plenty, according to Ms. Rowe who is taking a new, contemporary look at the spice. The western world is a stickler for food details she says and this changed scenario necessitates that pepper gets its due in the new world.

Pepper that is as commonplace as the salt on our tables is not well explained to the consumers as it should be she feels. If every respectable restaurant in the western world has a salt list on its menu qualifying the product as Himalayan rock, sea salt, Hawaiian black salt or Fleur de sel (French sea salt) then why should pepper not be understood as well, she argues.

The western world that consumes a great amount of it and probably knows about the vine and the corn: black, white, brown and pink do not know the big part that it plays in their lives. Pepper chicken, ‘bangers and mash’, batter fried foods are all prepared with oleoresin, a pepper extract, which is a fact not well- known.

Ms. Rowe’s research has taken her to the pepper plantations in Idukki and to the auction centre at Kumily, where she is living out the magic of the spice, regaling and enjoying her meeting with cultivators, auctioneers, buyers and traders. She says that this new world pepper is cultivated, cured and prepared by a few expert entrepreneurs here who are familiar with the fastidious demands. These major players are influencing the way in which the spice is grown, sorted and processed to finally be on kitchen shelves or on the dining table in black, green, pink colours bottled in brine or in shakers - whole, coarsely grounded or powdered, the infinite pungent variety.

The new methods are a world apart from how the spice was grown and treated before. The Spices Board is doing a great job on the spice but cardamom is their favourite at the moment, feels Ms. Rowe.

Moving onto the real use of the spice Ms. Rowe has been visiting homes and kitchens, meeting local cooks and chefs who use the ingredient in everyday cooking. Pepper water, pepper fired curries, used as a garnish or as seasoning; Rowe is collecting and travelling the hot pepper route.

She is looking forward to her meetings with grandmothers for their pepper recipes and also their use of it as a home remedy for illnesses.

“My general aim is to educate people. Pepper is such a phenomenal spice. It has an impact on their palate and health,” she gushes informing that very few people know that pepper aids digestion. With new light on the spice she hopes pepper corn will not be seen as one from a single origin but consumers now request for their special choices: Kumily pepper, Malabar Black or other premium varieties.

Rowe who was in a start up team to set fine dining restaurants in Shanghai, the first dessert parlour in China later set up her own company Rowe Publicity.

She advises on opening of theme restaurants, on marketing and publicity. Presently she works from California, “one of the culinary capitals of America,” on her book on the Indian condiment Pepper. “Yes, Piper Nigrum is all yours,” she says with a smile, about our spice that has peppered the world.

Caroline Rowe can be reached at caroiline@badfood.com. Her website is badbadfood.com

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