Spices and How to Know Them

The smoke from the furnace dries and at the same time blackens the pepper and gives it the unmistakable smoky smell which is characteristic of Singapore pepper. This smoky odor is retained to a considerable degree after the pepper is ground, and it is one of the tests by which pepper merchants determine whether a given sample is Singapore or not. The Singapore pepper from Borneo is divided into, first, the Mullacca, which is the best and heaviest; second, the Caytongee; and third, the poorest sort, Negara, which is most abundant, and which is small and usually falls to dust. Mangalore pepper, named from the city of Mangalore (Fig. 3), is the largest pepper corn grown. It is nearly twice the size of ordinary pepper, is of a deep black color, very clean, and of uniform size. When ground it yields a powder of a characteristic greenish appearance. Lampong pepper takes its name from a district bordering on the east end of the Island of Sumatra near the Straits of Sunda where it grows. There is also a city in the district by the name, Lampong (meaning bobbing in water), where all the men and women meet at a central market house to transact their business matters. The Lampong pepper corns are less uniform in size than those of the other varieties before mentioned, and are also of a lighter color, and the surface contains much dirt. Acheen, Sumatra, or West Coast, are names applied to the pepper found on the great wild island of Sumatra, visited by Marco Polo in 1291. The island is divided into semi-independent states, each being ruled by its own prince or chief, who may be called Sultan, Rajah, or Datto. The interior of Sumatra is inhabited by the lion and the tiger, and by bands of savage Malays mixed with Dyaks of Borneo and Hindoos, some of whom are very savage. Among these are the head-hunters, or cannibals, who impose as a penalty for certain crimes that the guilty one is to be cut to pieces and eaten, and sometimes is to be eaten alive. This class of people are found in the south of Achin. Acheen pepper (Fig. 2) takes its name from the district by that name, or from the city of Acheen (native dialect, Atkeh) (see illustration) and the district of Acheen, which exported in the year 1904, 60,000 piculs (136 lbs. each); Telak Betang (South Sumatra) exported 50,000 piculs (136 lbs. each); Padang, Sumatra (meaning an open plain), produces much pepper of good quality, and the Bataks, of North Sumatra, have long been devoted to its cultivation. The designation East and West Coast, as formerly used, have been (as have also the three names it was known by on the island, “Iada-Iawor” or “Lampoon,” “Iada Manna,” and “Iada Jambee”) lost track of, and the pepper is now designated according to its specific gravity as A, B, C, or D grade. A grade weighs at least 4 lbs., 13 oz. to the imperial gallon (481 grams per liter). B grade weighs at least 4 lbs., 5 oz. to the imperial gallon (431 grams per liter). C grade weighs at least 3 lbs., 13 oz. to the imperial gallon (381 grams per liter). D grade weighs at least 3 lbs., 5 oz. to the imperial gallon (586 grams per liter). There has probably not been any of the A grade of Acheen black pepper in this country for several years, for the reason that it is this grade of pepper that is preferred by the manufacturers of Penang white pepper; and since it is used up in that way it does not reach our market except in the form of white pepper, Fig. 5. The best way to test the quality of the whole pepper is by weight, the heavier being the best. It takes 6,984 Singapore pepper corns (Fig. 4) to weigh one pound, while the finer grades of Tellicherry or Malabar (Fig. 1) require but 6,400. [Illustration: CENTRAL MARKET LOMPONG (Bobbing in Water) TELAH BENTONG] [Illustration: A HOME IN ALLEPPY] Pepper is sometimes graded by putting it in water, when the heavy sinks and the light swims; the water also removes the dirt that might adhere to it. Shot pepper is the heavier black pepper put through a soaking and hardening process. Afterwards it is oiled to give it a better appearance, but as the water is injurious to the berry it is now generally separated in a column of air. The better appearance thus given to the shot pepper makes it more in demand and gives it a higher market value. From what has been said, we can readily understand that the quality of pepper differs in the different localities. Pepper will hold its strength longer than any other spice. It has been found by mixing Malabar for weight, Penang for strength, and Sumatra for color, we get the most desirable powdered article. Malabar pepper has about twice the strength of Singapore, which has twice the strength of Sumatra. The Atjeh, Atchin or Acheen, pepper from the northeastern part of Sumatra, and that from the province of Batak in the more central eastern part of Sumatra Island, as received in this country, contain much earthy matter, and the East Archipelago pepper culture, including the islands of Johore and Rhio, is so widely spread as to give us large and various qualities. The city of Penang, in the Straits Settlement, exported in the year 1904, 53,613 bags of black pepper and 22,415 bags of white pepper, being about half of the entire supply, and the Island of Ceylon exported in 1904, 2,746 cwt. of pepper valued at $379.83. Saigon, China, has also many acres under cultivation. Of course, when the price of pepper is high, there is more profit for the grower, and the laborer is given more employment, since the acreage is increased. Advances of money are made to the Chinaman by the merchants, who take security on the growing pepper at a rate fixed much below its actual value. The Chinaman on this advance money erects a small building required as a home, and purchases his farming implements and has two dollars monthly for food and for opium, and at the end of the third year the plantation is equally divided between the contracting parties. One man can take care of about 3,000 plants after they come into bearing. Ashantee pepper or West African (and as it is sometimes called, African Cubebs) is the fruit of the piper, (Cubeb) “Clusii,” and is principally from Niam-Niam, a district in Guinea bordering on the Gulf of Guinea in Africa, and is locally used as a substitute for black pepper, but has a hollow berry, much smaller and less wrinkled. In the southwest of India, where pepper grows wild, it is found in rich, moist soil, usually in narrow valleys. It propagates itself by running along on the ground and throwing off shoots every few feet. The natives, in caring for it, merely tie the ends of the vines to trees at distances at least six feet apart, and especially to those having a rough bark, as the vine readily clings to the rough surface of the tree. In India the berries of (Embelia) (Samara) Ribes are often mixed with pepper. There is also a fruit called _Melegueta_ pepper, known also as “Guinea Grains,” Grains of Paradise, or Alligator pepper, which is the seed of _Amomum Mele Gueta_, a plant of the ginger family, which contains seeds which are exceedingly pungent and are used as a spice through Central and Northern Africa. The cultivation of the pepper plant in the Western Hemisphere has been attended with fair success where it has been perseveringly pursued, but there is little probability that it can successfully compete even in the West India islands with that of those countries where the plant is indigenous. Jamaica pepper, which is a native of the Island of Jamaica, belongs more to the fruit of pimenta, an account of which is given under a separate chapter. The yield of pepper varies in different localities and may be from one and one-half to eight or ten pounds to a single vine. The third year the yield is one catty; fourth year, one and one-half catty; the fifth year, three and one-half catties, a catty being one and one-third pounds. Four thousand pounds is a good average to one acre. Ten pounds of green berries make only four to five pounds when dried and bagged for the market. [Illustration: SINGAPORE (City of the Lion)] [Illustration: VIEW IN HARBOR OF PENANG FROM STEAMER LOOKING NORTHWEST Copyright by Underwood and Underwood, N. Y.] It is hard to estimate the amount of black pepper used each year, but it is very great. The United States consumes more spices pro rata than any other country. This fact is well known by exporters after long experience, and now many spices are shipped direct to the United States ports instead of by the way of London. The chief use of pepper is that of a spice added principally to meats, but also to other food substances. Pepper is sometimes used for medicinal purposes, as it stimulates the stomach on account of the piperine it contains, and thus aids in digestion. In removing ringworms it has few equals. The native doctors of India consider it a stimulant, and they prescribe an infusion of the toasted berries in cases of cholera morbus; it will check violent vomiting in that disease when many other remedies fail. They also prepare a liniment from pepper which they think has sovereign virtue in chronic rheumatism. In Europe it is sometimes used as a stimulant in gout and palsy, and the watery infusion has proved a useful gargle in relaxation of the uvula. The dose of black pepper should be about six grains. The chief enemies of the pepper vine are white ants, the black bug and white bug, the borer, male crickets, and the Cinchana caterpillar. A strong solution of tuba root is sufficient to keep away white ants, and tuba root mixed with juice of common tobacco will prevent the black and white bug work, and in mild cases ashes or sulphur and lime applied early in the morning will be found sufficient. The borer begins by attacking the joints of the branches and its presence is known by the light yellowish color of the bark. There is no known preventive for the borer, except to catch it before it has gone too far. It always works around the joints, and when it has completed the circle, it commences to bore down the center of the branch, and sometimes, but very seldom, the stem. The male cricket goes for the roots, but does the least damage; if it has gone too far to be dug out, the best way is to plug up its hole as far as possible with clay. The green Cinchana caterpillar attacks the leaves only, but may destroy many of them; the only plan to make way with it is to send a coolie around to collect and destroy the insects. Whole pepper is seldom or never adulterated, although much is uncleaned. Old, water-soaked stock is at times found on the market. Several years ago two thousand bags were thrown into the Thames River from a wharf which was on fire, and was later offered for sale at auction. The powdered article, however, is adulterated more than any other condiment used as a table spice. The adulteration is made by almost any cheap, foreign article attainable and in a most ridiculous and not only unlawful but inhuman way. The probable reasons why pepper is selected for this more extensive abuse are found in the fact that adulteration is more easily covered up and in the further fact that, owing to the large amount of pepper used, the gain is much greater. The quality of a ground pepper can be told by an expert from its weight and color, and on examination with a lens of low magnifying power. The particles are not coarsely ground, and it is not difficult to pick out pieces of husk, yellow corn, and rice; if necessary, a more careful investigation under a microscope of higher power will serve for confirmation. Black pepper is much more liable to be adulterated than the white, although it is perfectly easy to dilute the latter with broken rice or cracker dust, or with long pepper. There is a disposition many times on the part of those who can afford it to have the best that can be made, in appearance at least, and it is thought by some that the whiter the color of the pepper the purer the quality. This is a great mistake. The removing of the outer covering of the black in order to make white pepper removes the most pungent part of the fruit. This work is sometimes carried so far that, while the fruit, when ground, is nearly as white as starch, there is little left but starch. It is questioned whether this practice is not as much an adulteration as the skimming of milk, as it takes away the most valuable part of the fruit. Long pepper is also used to adulterate pepper, but the taste and smell of the long pepper cannot be disguised, and its starch is nearly double the size of that of ordinary black pepper. Not only are the pepper shells used to adulterate ground pepper, but also other by-products, such as middlings, wheat, corn, ground olive stones, cocoanut shells, almond shells, mustard hulls, long pepper, Cayenne pepper, sago, and linseed. These are sold to the spice grinders under the name of “P. D.” pepper. Pepper adulterants and pepper mixtures,—P. D., pepper dust; H. P. D., hot pepper dust; W. P. D., white pepper dust—consist of such products as the grinder has at hand or can obtain at the lowest price, the mixer requiring only that the colors shall be such as are suitable for his trade. In London, the olive stones are much used, put up in colors of both black and white. Pepper mixtures are sold under the name of “Poivrette or Pepperette.” Their natural color is pale buff, much resembling the middle layer of the pepper berry when ground, and they cannot be distinguished from the pepper by the eye, even with the use of a hand lens, when mixed with a powdered pepper, but with the aid of the microscope with one-sixth or one-eighth objective, it is seen that they consist of pale, dense, lignous cells, being entire and marked with linear air spaces; some are torn and indistinct. Other substances examined showed finely ground clay and brick dust. The presence of pepper husks and charcoal is generally known by the immensely increased proportion of black particles in the field, as appears in Fig. 43, opposite page 25, Chap. III. The true pepper powder, and one in which rice starch is present, is given in Fig. 21 and in Fig. 42, which also gives us an idea of the size of the pepper starch, which is very small as compared with any other kind of starch. Much authority might be quoted on the adulterations of pepper, but enough has been written to give the reader an idea of its vastness. I will next endeavor to give the method of examining peppers microscopically. First, the sieve examination of those particles left upon a forty to sixty-mesh sieve is of value. This examination will frequently reveal the nature of the adulterant or the too large portion of pepper husk. Next, by the aid of a good dissecting microscope, fifteen to thirty power, the frequency of the occurrence of the coarse particles, after a little experience, will not be difficult to sort out, and the presence of sand or a notable excess of P. D. may be detected and estimated. Backgrounds of white and black with reflected light and afterwards transmitted light may be used in the manner so conveniently afforded by Zeiss’s stand made for this purpose. A portion of the powdered pepper or the separated coarse particles should also be treated with a chloral-hydrate solution for twenty-four hours, to render it more transparent for examination with higher powers, and in the meantime a part of the coarse particles collected from the sieve may be examined under a one and one-half inch objective and then crushed and re-examined, using both plain and polarized light. In this way husky matter may be distinguished and foreign starches rejected. Polarized light is then the means of bringing out more plainly the starches, the proportion of which iodine will reveal. Due allowance should be made for the smaller granules of pepper starch and all optically active tissue, such as the fibers and sclerenchyma or stone cells, which are found in olive stones and cocoanut shells. The chloral-hydrate preparation should now be examined, much of which disappears, and the starch is found much swollen. The structure of the pepper itself has already been explained and is supposed to be so well understood that it cannot be confused with the foreign matter, as the husky matter present is rendered so much clearer that its identification and differentiation are much easier. Experience with half a dozen samples of cheap, in comparison with a pure, pepper will soon teach one the best means of making out what has been briefly described. It has been found most valuable to digest about a gram of pepper with nitric acid, specific gravity 1.1, and chlorate of potash for several hours, or until the color is bleached, when it is then possible to distinguish the denser cellular structure more easily than in any other way. This is particularly true of the stone cells, which make up the larger part of the cocoanut shells and ground olive stones, especially when polarized light is used. Care should be taken not to confuse the stone cells of the pepper husk with those of olive stones or other adulterants. Charcoal at the same time remains unbleached. The analyst will find many variations in the samples met with and should always be on guard for something new. Chemical composition of black pepper.—The analysis of the pure ground pepper shows the amount of water to be between 8 and 10 per cent., but, of course, it varies with surrounding conditions. The ash in black peppers does not exceed from 4-10 to 7-10 per cent., and in white, 4-10 per cent.; it is fair to believe that anything above 5 per cent. for black and 2 per cent. for white is suspicious. The volatile oil, to which pepper owes its flavor, varies in black pepper from 1.69 to .70, and in white 1.26 to .57 are found, but this determination is not of great value as a means of detecting adulterations. Piperine, which is a neutral crystalline substance, and resin, to which the pepper owes its pungency, of which it yields about two per cent. in its composition, are similar to oil of turpentine as well in specific gravity as in the boiling point. These substances furnish a most valuable check on the purity of both white and black pepper. Pepper contains from 7.90 to 7.24 per cent. of these substances, showing a great constancy in amount, and on addition of adulterants, this is plainly affected, which seems better than a determination of pure piperine, which is difficult and causes much loss. It has also proved impossible to make determinations of piperine by the combustion, or K. Jeldahl, methods by application of Stutzer’s copper-hydrate process, the percentage of nitrogen being so small, 4.912 in piperine, as to make the error very large when converting the former to the latter, the necessary factor being 20.36. The determination of starch or its equivalent in reducing sugars has been looked into with care, and a preliminary extraction with alcohol and water is necessary to obtain results which are fairly constant, which determination shows black pepper to contain from 34 to 38 per cent. of starch, or 42 to 47 per cent. of substances of reducing sugar equivalent, calculated on dry ash free substance. White pepper contains in the same way from 40 to 43 per cent. starch and gives from 50 to 55 per cent. of reducing sugar equivalent on dry ash free substance. The crude fiber in black pepper does not vary far from 10 per cent., but in the white pepper is much reduced, depending to a certain extent on the perfection of the decortication. Four to 8 per cent. are probably fair limits, and this determination is quite necessary in revealing the presence of foreign woody or fibrous matter. Albuminoids do not vary widely, 10 per cent. being the average, with extremes of 7.69 and 11.50. The addition of nitrogenous seeds, of course, increases the amount, and of fibrous or woody matter diminishes it. We have the following result as a standard: Water, 8.0 to 11.0 Ash, 2.75 to 5.0 Volatile Oil, .50 to 1.75 Pepperine and Resin, 7.0 to 8.0 Starch, 32.0 to 38.0 Crude Fiber, 8.0 to 11.0 Albuminoids, 7.0 to 12.0 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ CHAPTER V WHITE PEPPER WHITE pepper is thought by many to be produced by a separate plant, but it is the fruit of the black pepper vine, the change in appearance being brought about by artificial preparation. The poor natives are said to collect for market some white berries, which have been left on the vines until fully ripe and then have fallen to the ground and, by their exposure to the sun, have lost the outer black coating. That which remains is called the “genuine” white pepper. This collection of the white pepper corns by the natives has given rise to the story that a small bird called ballaree, feeding on the black pepper, digests nothing but the outer husks and, the balance, having passed whole through the organs of the bird, becomes white. The pepper vines are injured by allowing the berry to ripen before gathering to make white pepper. For this reason the unripe fruit is often used, and some manufacturers make it a business to prepare or make the white pepper. The unripe black pepper is robbed of its outer coat, to make white pepper, in several ways, according to the extent to which the decorticating process is carried. Thus, we may have decorticated pepper from which all three coats are removed, or only one or two of them. All of these kinds are called factitious white pepper. Thus we have Tellicherry, which is particularly fine, and, second, the “coriander white,” so called from its close resemblance to the seed of that name. This is also a fine grade. It is made in imitation of the coriander seed by cutting off from the end of each corn a piece of the outer hull, so that the dark-colored inner portion shows. The ordinary white follows next, which is made from the Singapore, Penang, etc. This is often bleached to imitate the first two, but it makes a sad imitation. The Tellicherry and coriander are packed in cases of about 200 pounds, each with marked tare on every case. The ordinary white is packed in bags of about 150 pounds, with 2 per cent. tare, with an allowance of one pound to each package. The process is as follows: The black pepper may be kept in the house for several days and then bruised or washed in a basket to remove the stalk and pulpy matter, after which it is dried in the sunshine before shipping. It is also prepared by steeping in water in which it has been allowed fully to ripen and then removing the outer coat by friction. The natives also remove the outer layer by placing the ripest red grains in running water or in pits made near the river bank or in stagnant pools. Sometimes it is only buried in the ground, and when it has been under this treatment for about one week it will swell and burst the outer husk, which is then easily removed by rubbing with the hands while it is drying in the sunshine. After being winnowed it is ready for export. Another way of preparing white pepper, often used, is to place the black pepper in a solution of chloride of lime water to remove the dark coating, after which it is rubbed and dried as in the other preparation. Although the white pepper has the name of being a superior article, it is not. It is very true that only the marrow of the black pepper berries can be used to make white pepper, and the product does have an exquisite flavor; but since the greater strength lies in the outer cover, there is some doubt as to the quality of the white pepper. Moreover, the real goodness of the pepper is, in fact, not improved by this process, as the water injures its strength, the outer husk contains more of the aroma, and the quality of the pepper removed is almost proportionate to the weight of the pepper corn. The only gain obtained is in the appearance, and this process is but another way of meeting the public demand for something to please the eye, instead of the palate.