Peppercorns
Pepper grows in warm, moist sunny climates, usually within
about 15° of the equator. In most countries pepper is grown as a commodity
to be sold at a prefixed price per ton, and is picked as soon as the berries
are formed on the vine. When quality brings no extra cash, and margins are
preciously slim, farmers can't take any chances. The longer the peppercorns
are left on the vine, the greater the risk that they will be eaten by birds,
or that the whole crop could be lost in a devastating storm. In a few places
like India and Borneo, pepper is viewed as more than just a commodity. Here,
it is part of the cultural heritage of the people, making growing and harvesting
more like craftwork than factory production. Extra time and effort are taken
to nurture the plants to produce the bold, rich flavors that have made pepper
the king of spices for millennia. Both Tellicherry and Malabar pepper come
from the same plant and are harvested at the same time. The Malabar corns
are already a big step up from other peppers. Their size is noticeably larger
in comparison with what supermar-kets sell as black peppercorns. Tellicherry
are even larger, having matured further before harvesting. Some spikes of
peppercorns are in a better location on the vine and receive more sunlight.
Even on the individual spikes the corns towards the top tend to get more
sun light and more nutrients, maturing faster as well. Only the largest
10% are able to bear the name Tellicherry. The growing and grading of pepper
are taken very seriously; pepper is more than a crop with monetary benefits,
it is a part of the Indian culture. In the Sarawak region of the island
of Borneo, as in India, the local farmers use their experience and knowledge
gained over the centuries to grow and harvest their pepper crops. In India
the peppercorns are dried in the sun for about a week, losing a share of
their flavor in the process. This method is used for nearly all of the pepper
in Borneo as well, but now with the help of the Ministry of Agriculture
in Sarawak, the largest of the crop are rapidly dried indoors with hot air
to prevent such a loss. Sheltering the pepper from the elements produces
more fully-flavored, cleaner peppercorns that fetch a higher price for the
farmers. This technique was developed in response to the demands of meticulous
German sausage makers who wanted extra clean pepper for their unique, cold-curing
process, and were willing to pay extra for it. The hot air-drying of pepper
in Sarawak has been perfected, yielding a surplus of peppercorns for export
which we have been anxiously anticipating for the past few years. While
the size of a peppercorn is important, maturity is the most important factor.
As strong as the urge is to make an analogy to people, the analogy to tomatoes
is probably better. The largest peppercorns from a crop, like our Tellicherry
and Sarawak, are better than small for much the same reason that vine-ripened
tomatoes, fresh from a farmer's stand in the middle of August, are better
than shelf-ripened tomatoes from the supermarket in January. A tomato plant
produces something that looks like a tomato fairly quickly, but it is only
in the final weeks of ripening that the rich, sweet flavor develops. Peppercorns
are the same way. Immature pepper is still nice and well worth a trip to
the market, but it is that extra ripening time that makes the trip half-way
around the world, possibly stumbling upon America along the way, seem like
a worthwhile effort. |
