Salt and Pepper: A Perspective
Have you ever thought about salt and pepper? Theres more to it than just the shaker on the table. Pepper is the singular reason we are Americans instead of Europeans. Even today, pepper is the most widely traded spice in the world and served as the incentive for Christopher Columbus and others to search for a direct oceanic route to India. Hippocrates prescribed it as a digestive aid, and the active ingredient in pepper, piperine, is what makes it hot and is still used today as a heart and kidney stimulant.
Historically, salt and pepper have been used as currency, medicinally and as seasoning. Plato wrote, Pepper is small in quantity and great in value. Ancient Egypt, the Greeks and the Romans all competed for supplies, which were shipped via small boats in the Mediterranean or overland by camel along the Silk Road. Both routes were treacherous, with the danger of sinking on the voyage contrasted against the cost of buying off Arab middlemen.
Interestingly, all varieties of pepper come from the fruit of a perennial climbing shrub, and are grown by a handful of countries within 15 degrees of the equator. Differences in...
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