Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

History of Pepper

ipcnet.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 63 posts

Re: History of Pepper

#11

Post by caseyohara »

unwind wrote: post #7
peter303 wrote: post #4

"The spice must flow" has this historic antecedent. At times pepper's taste, preservative, alleged health value and price was off the scale, not unlike Dune spice.

Are you sure pepper has preservative properties? Any link/reference would be appreciated, I hadn't heard of that before. A quick check of Wikipedia didn't find anything either.

From the linked article:

As a Preservative: The value of pepper as a natural preservative for meat and other perishable foods has been known for centuries. Studies have shown that this is due to the anti-oxidant and anti-microbial properties present in pepper.

Re: History of Pepper

#13

Post by sfifs »

One interesting side note is that in the land of origin of pepper in India, to a very large extent Chilli has replaced pepper as the spiciness creating ingredient in most household and restaurant dishes. Chillies of course come from Mexico and are another colonial import. Pepper is now used only in a very few mostly traditional Indian dishes.

Re: History of Pepper

#15

Post by cosmotic »

news_to_me wrote: post #9
cosmotic wrote: post #3

"Known Medicinal Uses: Pepper is an important ingredient in Ayurvedic, Chinese, Unani" Those are not medicinal uses.

They are, they’re just not mainstream medicine.

If we allow for 'not mainstream medicine', why then are they stopping at those three? Why not include the spells and potions that might include pepper? Why not the treatments you or I could just make up on the spot in a work of fiction? If we expand the definition of medicine to include nonsense, the term would lose all meaning. As a society we demand medicine be 'things proven to work' and all those things they list are not part of that set; they have not been proven to work, and thus not included in 'medicine'. If they were in fact proven to work, they would simply be part of mainstream medicine.

Re: History of Pepper

#16

Post by unwind »

caseyohara wrote: post #11
unwind wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you sure pepper has preservative properties? Any link/reference would be appreciated, I hadn't heard of that before. A quick check of Wikipedia didn't find anything either.

From the linked article: As a Preservative: The value of pepper as a natural preservative for meat and other perishable foods has been known for centuries. Studies have shown that this is due to the anti-oxidant and anti-microbial properties present in pepper.

Haha thanks, serves me right for skimming, I guess.

I couldn't come up with any examples of foods preserved using black pepper obviously, but that might just be cultural filtering (I'm from northern Europe).

Googling says "jams, pickles, preserves and candies" which was not very helpful.

Re: History of Pepper

#17

Post by Bud »

hammock wrote: post #10
Bud wrote: post #2

As an aside, if anyone is looking for an absolutely insane pepper mill, get the Männkitchen Pepper Cannon. You will never need another one. It's a big solid hunk of aluminum, stainless steel burrs, and puts out 5-10x the amount that other mills do per crank. Easier to adjust fineness of grind than any other mill out there. Evenness of grind is also superior. It has changed my entire life in the kitchen.

A similar pepper mill, made in the USA (not China) for a lower price: Unicorn Mills Magnum ($59) http://www.unicornmills.org/magnum-plus.html I have not tested either, though I have heard of the Mannkitchen Pepper Cannon and from what I know it is probably the best one you can get if you are not concerned with price. We are talking high-volume output, only one or two pumps needed per dish. Or as they say in the marke…

I have one of those Peugeots, got it for my wedding, and thought I would love it. It's gorgeous, but sadly, it's just plain awful at doing what pepper mills are for: generating pepper. It's better as a forearm workout than as a grinder of pepper. Sad, but true.

That Unicorn can't compete either, btw. Grind rate is much slower and it's made of plastic.

Männkitchen's marketing sounds exaggerated...until you use the product. It's just unreal.

Re: History of Pepper

#18

Post by hammock »

Bud wrote: post #17
hammock wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A similar pepper mill, made in the USA (not China) for a lower price: Unicorn Mills Magnum ($59) http://www.unicornmills.org/magnum-plus.html I have not tested either, though I have heard of the Mannkitchen Pepper Cannon and from what I know it is probably the best one you can get if you are not concerned with price. We are talking high-volume output, only one or two pumps needed per dish. Or as they say in the marke…

I have one of those Peugeots, got it for my wedding, and thought I would love it. It's gorgeous, but sadly, it's just plain awful at doing what pepper mills are for: generating pepper. It's better as a forearm workout than as a grinder of pepper. Sad, but true. That Unicorn can't compete either, btw. Grind rate is much slower and it's made of plastic. Männkitchen's marketing sounds exaggerated...until you use the pro…

Good data. Thanks!

Re: History of Pepper

#19

Post by mhuffman »

hammock wrote: post #10
Bud wrote: post #2

As an aside, if anyone is looking for an absolutely insane pepper mill, get the Männkitchen Pepper Cannon. You will never need another one. It's a big solid hunk of aluminum, stainless steel burrs, and puts out 5-10x the amount that other mills do per crank. Easier to adjust fineness of grind than any other mill out there. Evenness of grind is also superior. It has changed my entire life in the kitchen.

A similar pepper mill, made in the USA (not China) for a lower price: Unicorn Mills Magnum ($59) http://www.unicornmills.org/magnum-plus.html I have not tested either, though I have heard of the Mannkitchen Pepper Cannon and from what I know it is probably the best one you can get if you are not concerned with price. We are talking high-volume output, only one or two pumps needed per dish. Or as they say in the marke…

I have had a unicorn for 5-6 years or so and am very happy with it. My only "complaint" is that you have to side load the peppercorns which can get messy. But otherwise the best I have ever used.

Re: History of Pepper

#20

Post by porknubbins »

I’m always amazed by our ability to adopt and normalize once “exotic” spices, commodities etc and then pretend they were always a part of our culture so much so that we forget where they even came from. One of the UK’s most popular tea brands “Yorkshire Gold” evokes nostaligia for rural England when it really comes from Africa or India.
Post reply on HN