184 FOODS AND FOOD ADULTERANTS. 



will be confined to the genus Piper, reserving for a separate chapter the 

 remaining substances which are commonly miscalled peppers. 



The pepper plant is a perennial climbing shrub, with a small, round, 

 sessile, fleshy fruit, which grows spontaneously on the Malabar coast, 

 and whose culture has been extended to Siam, Hindostan, Indo-China, 

 Malacca, Singapore, Penaug, Ceylon, Sumatra, Java, Borneo, and the 

 neighboring islands, and to a small extent in Guiana and Cayenne. 



The greatest production is in Sumatra, and the ports of export are 

 principally Singapore and Penan g, the Malabar pepper coming from 

 Tellicherry. Our imports are principally through England, and not 

 direct, and it seems that, in England at least, it is customary to mix 

 peppers of different origin in grinding, taking Malabar for weight, Pe- 

 nang for strength, and Sumatra for color. 



Of the other characteristics and history of pepper a most complete 

 account may be found in " Fliickiger and Hanbury's Pharinaco- 

 graphia."* Of its preparation for the market these authors say : 



When one or two berries at the base of the spike begin to turn red the whole spike 

 is pinched off. Next day the berries are rubbed off with the hands and picked clean, 

 then dried for three days on mats or on smooth, hard ground or on bamboo baskets 

 near a gentle fire. 



As thus prepared it is the black pepper of the trade. 

 When the berries are allowed to ripen, and the black outer pericarp 

 is removed on drying, they are known as white pepper. 



The grains of white pepper are of rather larger size than those of black, and of a 

 warm, grayish tint. They are nearly spherical or a little flattened. At the base the 

 skin of the fruit is thickened into a blunt prominence, whence about twelve light 

 stripes run meridian-like toward the de pressed summit. If the skin is scraped off the 

 dark-brown testa is seen inclosing the hard, translucent albumen. In anatomical 

 structure, as well as in taste and smell, white pepper agrees with black, which, in 

 fact, it represents in a rather more fully-grown state. 



A study of the structure of black pepper will, therefore, furnish every 

 information in regard to the white. There are also two species of Piper 

 which furnish a berry used in a similar way to that of Piper nigrum. 

 They are known as long pepper, Piper longum and Piper officinarum. 

 Their structure is similar to that of the common pepper, with some 

 characteristic differences. It is difficult to say how far they are an ar- 

 ticle of commerce in this country. They come principally from Penang 

 and Singapore, being brought from Java and other places. 



The structure of black pepper is described as follows in the work last 

 quoted : 



The small, round berry-like fruits grow somewhat loosely to the number of twenty 

 to thirty on a common pendulous fruit stalk. They are at first green, then become red, 

 and, if allowed to ripen, yellow, but they are gathered before complete maturity, and 

 by drying in that state turn blackish gray or brown. If left until quite ripe they lose 

 some of their pungency and gradually fall off. 



The berries after drying are spherical, about one-fifth inch in diameter, wrinkled on 

 the surface, indistinctly pointed below by the remains of a very s horfc pedicel, and 



* London, McMillan & Co., 1879. 



