LONG PEPPER
Long pepper is the fruit spike of a wild plant of _Piper longum_
(_Chavica Roxburghii_) and of _Piper_ (_C. officinarum_), there being
two species—French, _Poivre longue_; German, _Langer Pfeffer_; Italian,
_Pepe lungo_; Spanish, _Pimienta larga_; Javanese, _Chabi-Jawa_;
Hindostan, _Pipel_; Cyngalese, _Tipilie, elephant pepper_; Cochin
Chinese, _Caylot_.
LONG pepper (_Piper officinarum_) is a perennial plant and has oblong
leaves attenuated at the base, and is a native of Indian Archipelago,
Nepaul, and Java. It is found growing along the streams of the East
Indies, Sumatra, Celebes, and Timor, and is also found in Malabar,
Ceylon, and East Bengal, and in the Philippines, being indigenous to
most of these countries. It is distinguished from the former by having
cordate or heart-shaped leaves at the base, which are pinnate and
five-veined.
In Bengal the plants are raised from suckers and are set five feet apart
in rich, high, dry soil. Its stem is smooth with a slender branch and
scandent leaves, cordate pointed and nerved, and of a deep-green color.
The flowers are diœcious and small, in short, dense, terminal solitary
spikes, which are nearly cylindrical and opposite to the leaves. They
are very similar to black pepper, with some characteristic differences.
Long pepper appears to have been known by the ancient Greeks and Romans,
and in the tenth century mention is made of long pepper or
_Macro-piper_.
The minute baccate fruit, which is closely packed around the central
axis, is at first green, becoming red when ripe. The peppers are hottest
in their immature state and are then gathered and dried in the sunshine,
when they change to a dark gray color. They are imported in the spikes
which have the appearance of being limed. They are about one and
one-half inches in length by one-fourth inch thick, but vary in size and
are indented on the surface. The yield from an acre is three maunds of
eighty pounds the first year, twelve the second year, and eighteen the
third year, after which the yield diminishes. The roots are finally
grubbed up and dried and sold as “_pi pli mul_,” which is a favorite
medicine of the Hindoos, who use it for palsy and apoplexy. The infusion
of the powdered fruit mixed with a little honey is said to be good in
catarrhal affection, when the chest is loaded with phlegm.
In structure it does not bear a close resemblance to black pepper, as
its pepper corns, or berries, and husks all harden together on a long,
central, irregular, climbing stem, much in the same way that in the
pines the seed and covering are all hardened into one cone. It not only
has more woody fiber but brings with it much more sand, which is found
imbedded in the crevices of the irregular fruit, than is found in
ordinary pepper. Long pepper is a spice often called for during the fall
season for pickling. It imparts a flavor to pickles which causes a
demand for it for preserving purposes. There is much old stock on the
market, which is poor. This is often used to adulterate ordinary pepper,
but it can be readily detected by its disagreeable odor, which warmth
will develop, and by its slaty color and the amount of sand it contains.
Although grinders try to destroy the odor by bleaching, and the slaty
color by sifting out the husk to make it lighter, its characteristics
cannot be covered up in the true pepper.
In gathering the long pepper, the native, being paid by the weight for
what he brings to the market, takes care not to less the weight of dirt,
but rather to increase it, and in consequence we find that it has always
from 3 to 7 per cent. of insoluble sand and clay in addition to the
proper ash of the fruit. It is impossible to clean it as pepper should
be cleaned for grinding, except with difficulty and by hand.
The pepper is harvested in January and when thoroughly dry is put up in
piculs of 135½ pounds each.
The ash of the long pepper contains a very large proportion of salts
insoluble in hydrochloric acid, and when ground the hard husk and woody
centers, as well as the dirt, are necessarily ground along with the
minute berries. Although it contains more sand and more woody fiber than
genuine ground pepper of the corresponding shade, it does not contain as
much cellulose as the most husky black pepper.
Long pepper is always cheaper than the best black pepper and may be sold
as long pepper on the market without offense, but it has no more right
to a place on the market as black pepper than has any other admixture,
and as such is as fraudulent as buckwheat meal and is just as
objectionable.
A sure test for long pepper as an adulterant in ground black pepper is
to heat a piece of cold meat between two plates and sprinkle some of the
suspected fresh long pepper on it, when the smell and flavor will be so
offensive that one will feel obliged to reject the meat. The presence of
long pepper may be determined by the following characteristics:
1. If much long pepper is used, its peculiar slaty color will show,
although sifting and bleaching will partly hide the color; but the odor
of the mixture when warmed is unmistakable to an educated olfactory
sense, even if the amount of mixture be moderate. The odor cannot be
destroyed by bleaching, for that has been tried, and even the ethal as
well as the alcoholic extracts from which the solvent has been
evaporated at a low temperature yields, when warmed, the characteristic
odor very plainly. Admixture of long pepper would also introduce much
sand in the powdered black pepper, and in white pepper it would be much
more noticeable, as white pepper does not contain 2½ per cent. of sand
and more would mean an admixture. There being also much woody matter in
powdered long pepper, arising from the smallness of the berries as well
as the hardened setting and from the central woody tube, this may be
detected either by chemical analysis or by microscope, and some of it by
the naked eye or with the aid of a large hand lens. If the sample be
spread out in a smooth, thin layer on strong paper by means of an ivory
paper knife, pieces of fluffy woody fiber will be detected, especially
if the thin layer be tapped lightly from below. These pieces come from
the central part of the indurated catkin, which cannot be completely
ground fine as genuine pepper stalks are ground. Much of this matter is
removed by the grinder’s sieves, but enough pass through the meshes of
the silk to be useful as a corroborative indication, and if any
particles of husk pass through they can be told from those of the
genuine pepper husks.
A proportion of the starch granules of long pepper is of larger size,
about .0002 inch, and of angular shape, very slightly smaller than rice
granules and more loosely aggregated in clusters or isolated. Here it is
necessary to notice that the statement is made in books that genuine
pepper starch is round in form. Pepper starch is doubtless round in the
main, but not invariably. (See illustration.) The loose granules of the
interior are spherical, but in the dense portions of the berry they
become more angular by pressure on each other.
Chemical composition of long pepper:
Total ash, 8.91
Sand and ash matter converted into 1.2
sugar, H. C. L.,
Total matter soluble in 10 per 67.83
cent. of H. C. L.,
Starch and matters convertible into 44.04
sugar,
Albuminous matter soluble in 15.47
alkali,
Cellulose, 15.70
Extracted by alcohol, 7.7
Extracted by ether, 5.5
Nitrogen, 2.1
Long pepper also contains piperine, resin, and volatile oil.
The principal cities of export are Singapore and Penang, the annual
amount of export being from 2,000 to 3,000 piculs of 135½ pounds each
from each city at a London market value of 37 to 45s. a cwt.
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[Illustration: CAPSICUM OR CAYENNE
1 Zanzibar
2 Bombay
3 Sierra Leone
4, 5, 6 and 7 Common Garden]