The warm waters of the Arabian Sea meet the fresh waters of the Vembanad lake near the city of Kochi. Go past the brackish water system where they meet, and dive into the vegetation near the shoreline- hot and humid no matter what time of the year - and you may see vines with broad and glossy leaves clinging to the trees. You may even see the fruit; berries that are green initially and then turning red, eventually black, hanging in long pendulous bunches.
This is Piper Nigrum - black pepper - and it changed our world.
The ancient Egyptians knew of this spice, and so did the ancient Greeks. Romans coveted it and spent inordinate amounts of sesterces to procure it. The rise of the Islamic empire blocked Europe’s access to it. The hunger for a easier route to this “king of spices” kicked off the age of exploration, the discovery of the Americas, changed history, and is responsible for the world we now live in.
This is that story. A story of food, history, botany, the age of exploration, the making of the modern world - but mostly a story of food. Our story starts on the Malabar coast of India, goes westward to Egypt, Greece, Rome, the Levant, the New worlds and their wondrous new foods, and then comes back to India and the Far East. The spices that started their journey from Malabar ended up flavoring the rest of the world; but the foods from the rest of the world came here too. This too, is that story.