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Black pepper (Piper nigrum) is a flowering vine in the family Piperaceae, cultivated for its fruit (the peppercorn), which is usually dried and used as a spice and seasoning. The fruit is a drupe (stonefruit) which is about 5 mm (0.20 in) in diameter (fresh and fully mature), dark red, and contains a stone which encloses a single pepper seed.
Piperine was discovered in 1819 by Hans Christian Ørsted, who isolated it from the fruits of Piper nigrum, the source plant of both black and white pepper. [10] Piperine was also found in Piper longum and Piper officinarum (Miq.) C. DC. (=Piper retrofractum Vahl), two species called "long pepper". [11]
It is usually found as a mixture with isocaryophyllene (the cis double bond isomer) and α-humulene (obsolete name: α-caryophyllene), a ring-opened isomer. Caryophyllene is one of the chemical compounds that contributes to the aroma of black pepper .
The Piperaceae (/ ˌ p ɪ p ə ˈ r eɪ ʃ iː /), also known as the pepper family, are a large family of flowering plants. The group contains roughly 3,600 currently accepted species in five genera. The vast majority of species can be found within the two main genera: Piper (2,171 species) and Peperomia (over 1,000 species). [4]
There is a record from Tamil texts of Greeks purchasing large sacks of black pepper from India, and many recipes in the 1st-century Roman cookbook Apicius make use of the spice. The trade in spices lessened after the fall of the Roman Empire, but demand for ginger, black pepper, cloves, cinnamon and nutmeg revived the trade in later centuries. [19]
Black pepper (P. nigrum) essential oil is sometimes used in herbalism, and long pepper (P. longum) is similarly employed in Ayurveda, where it was an ingredient of Triphala Guggulu and (together with black pepper) of Trikatu pills, used for rasayana (rejuvenating and detoxifying) purposes. One Piper species has gained large-scale use as a ...
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The degree of heat found within a food is often measured on the Scoville scale. [14] There has long been a demand for capsaicin-spiced products like chili pepper, and hot sauces such as Tabasco sauce and Mexican salsa. [14] It is common for people to experience pleasurable and even euphoric effects from ingesting capsaicin. [14]