page_title: Piper (plant)
section_title: As spice and vegetable
hierarchical_section_title: Piper (plant) / Piper and humans / As spice and vegetable
caption_attribution_description: Deutsch: Grüner, weißer und schwarzer Pfeffer. English: Green, white and black pepper.
context_page_description: Piper, the pepper plants or pepper vines, is an economically and ecologically important genus in the family Piperaceae.
  It contains about 1,000-2,000 species of shrubs, herbs, and lianas, many of which are dominant species in their native habitat. The diversification of this taxon is of interest to understanding the evolution of plants.
  Pepper plants belong to the magnoliids, which are angiosperms but neither monocots nor eudicots. Their family, Piperaceae, is most closely related to the lizardtail family, which in fact generally look like smaller, more delicate and amphibious pepper plants. Both families have characteristic tail-shaped inflorescences covered in tiny flowers. A somewhat less close relative is the pipevine family. A well-known and very close relative – being also part of the Piperaceae – are the radiator plants of the genus Peperomia.
  The scientific name Piper and the common name "pepper" are derived from the Sanskrit term pippali, denoting the long pepper.
context_section_description: Culinary use of pepper plants is attested perhaps as early as 9,000 years ago. Peppercorn remains were found among the food refuse left by Hoabinhian artisans at Spirit Cave, Thailand. It is likely that these plants were collected from the wild rather than deliberately grown.
  Use of peppercorns as pungent spice is significant on an international scale. By classical antiquity, there was a vigorous trade of spices including black pepper (P. nigrum) from South Asia to Europe. The Apicius, a recipe collection complied about 400 AD, mentions "pepper" as a spice for most main dishes. In the late Roman Empire, black pepper was expensive, but was available readily enough to be used more frequently than salt or sugar. 
  As Europe moved into the Early Middle Ages, trade routes deteriorated and the use of pepper declined somewhat, but peppercorns, storing easily and having a high mass per volume, never ceased to be a profitable trade item. In the Middle Ages, international traders were nicknamed Pfeffersäcke ("pepper-sacks") in German towns of the Hanseatic League and elsewhere. Later, wars were fought by European powers, between themselves and in complex alliances and enmities with Indian Ocean states, in part about control of the supply of spices, perhaps the most archetypal being black pepper fruit. Today, peppercorns of the three preparations (green, white and black) are one of the most widely used spices of plant origin worldwide.
  Due to the wide distribution of Piper, the fruit of other species are also important spices, many of them internationally. Long pepper (P. longum), is possibly the second-most popular Piper spice internationally; it has a rather chili-like "heat" and the whole inflorescence is used as the fruits are tiny. Cubeb (P. cubeba), also known as tailed pepper, played a major role in the spice trade. Reputedly Philip IV of Spain suppressed trade in cubeb peppercorns at the end of the 1630s to capitalize on his share of the black pepper trade. It remains a significant spice around the Indian Ocean region today, however. West African pepper (P. guineense), is commonly used in West African cuisine, and is sometimes used in the East African berbere spice mix. This species, despite being traded more extensively in earlier times, is less common outside Africa today. 
  Not only the seeds of Piper are used in cooking. West African Pepper leaves, known locally as uziza, are used as a flavoring vegetable in Nigerian stews. In Mexican-influenced cooking, hoja santa or Mexican pepperleaf (P. auritum) has a variety of uses. In Southeast Asia, leaves of two species of Piper have major importance in cooking: lolot (P. lolot) is used to wrap meat for grilling in the Indochina region, while wild betel (P. sarmentosum) is used raw or cooked as a vegetable in Malay and Thai cuisine; The stems and roots of Piper chaba are used as a spice in Bangladeshi cuisine.
caption: Black pepper (Piper nigrum) corns, from left to right:
  Green (pickled unripe fruits)
  White (dried ripe seeds)
  Black (dried unripe fruits)
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