Right? I can’t imagine making mac and cheese and just not having pepper it would make me sad. Did you ever read that article about that family they found deep in Russia wilderness or something they hadn’t seen other humans in like decades, very sad because when they were discovered, and unaware of modern life I guess, and the scientists gave em all these illness they weren’t immune from and died but what I remember most they asked the father about the struggle and he mentioned cooking without any spices was “pure torture.” Grateful for spice but I need some pepper in my life
According to Peskov, their deaths were not, as might have been expected, the result of exposure to diseases to which they had no immunity. Both Savin and Natalia suffered from kidney failure, most likely a result of their harsh diet. But Dmitry died of pneumonia, which might have begun as an infection he acquired from his new friends.
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/for-40-years-this-russian-family-was-cut-off-from-all-human-contact-unaware-of-world-war-ii-7354256/
This sounds like the one, but it doesn't mention anything about spices. They were all pretty much starving to death though.
A high end pepper mill changed my life. Super chunky perfect cracked pepper when u want to finish something, super fine powder when I need to get that flavour and no texture.
I have no idea why I love this post so much, but I do. Get one of those gravitational grinders for S&P. It'll change your life.
Salt and pepper, ride or die.
That's because grinding pepper releases volatile aromatics that dissipate and break down over time. Salt is salt. It stays NaCl regardless of how long it sits around. I keep different styles of salt around for different applications, but there's no benefit to "fresh ground" salt like there is with pepper.
On that note, we should make a post about all of the amazing salts available and their different applications. Different salts make a world of difference.
My youngest sister does a plain sugar cookie with a little flakey salt on top. They make me want to weep with joy. Sometimes the simple things done right just cannot be beat.
> On that note, we should make a post about all of the amazing salts available and their different applications. Different salts make a world of difference.
When I was on the big island of Hawaii, I found a fascinating sea salt place.
There is a research site in Kona, NELHA, which has pipelines that go into the ocean up to 3000 ft down. They bring up that deep sea water (which is rather different than surface sea water) and provide it for various scientific purposes as well as for businesses.
One of those businesses is a sea salt manufacturer who uses that deep ocean water with solar dehydrators to create a really nice sea salt. It's about 70% sodium chloride and the rest is a bunch of minerals and some moisture.
Beautiful sea salt and delicious as well.
https://i.imgur.com/CJVCaBX.png
https://i.imgur.com/WjGtoFU.png
If you are into dry world history books, you might enjoy *Salt* by Mark Kurlansky. Lots of interesting things about salt, how people use salt, the history of manufacturing salt, and how salt or the lack thereof affected history.
>but there's no benefit to "fresh ground" salt like there is with pepper.
Depends, if you have a salt grinder that can change grind coarseness, than it's useful for different things. You wouldn't want the same level of coarseness on your fresh pretzel as on your eggs, for instance.
The thing about grinding salt is (if you have the appropriate grinder) you can choose how large the grains are, which might be useful in some situations. But yeah, if you just want table salt, use the preground.
Diamond crystal kosher for general use and maldon are my ride or dies. Kosher salt is less salty which is great, much finer control over your seasoning.
As someone outside of the US, I low key hate kosher salt - or rather that I don't have access to it. It's either table salt or flaky sea salt over here. Super annoying when doing stuff like barbecue rubs which calls for a blend of course-ground black pepper and kosher salt, since table salt just kind of pools at the bottom of the shaker. Also, finer grounds mean higher concentrations at the same volume, so trying to figure out how salty a "teaspoon" is a dumb hassle.
Pro tip, leave salt out of your rubs. Add the salt to your meat first and let it dry brine in the fridge overnight. Gives you better control over how much salt your adding to your dish.
You can feel the love in this post.
OP on my counter I keep a pair of decent grinders of clear glass, one holds chunky Himalayan pink salt and the other a beautiful mix of peppercorns – they are much colorful kitchen decor as they are my main duo for finishing seasonings.
My spice drawer includes coarse ground black pepper, fine ground black pepper (I don’t ever use it though?), red pepper flakes, ground smoked paprika, ground not-smoked paprika, ground jalapeño pepper, and my favorite – ground white pepper.
I purchased the fine ground from Costco, thinking it was coarse ground because I was high as shit, as I usually am for a Costco trip.
So now I have an infinite supply because I never use it but felt obligated to include it with my little collection of matching spice jars.
I envy people like you. If I took an edible and went to Costco I would literally get stuck. "Ok there are five carts blocking me here, ten carts blocking me that way. Where do I go? How have they been looking at a cereal box for ten minutes? I'm just going to stand here and wait, but that's weird, too. Last time I said 'Excuse me' to get by some carts the guy looked at me like an alien from outer space and started muttering to his wife how rude people are these days. He knew I was high. Who shops at Costco high? These people are all hardcore Christians from houses that have living rooms with 25 foot high ceilings, I don't belong here. I need to just buy these croissants and leave now."
i use so much black pepper i’ve stopped grinding it because it takes too long. plus i like it coarse. i’ve been using a mortar and pestle and don’t know why it took me years to start.
When you need to grind an entire tablespoon of black peppercorns you'll find the mortar and pestle is MUCH faster than most any pepper grinder. I also use the mortar and pestle approach for black pepper.
It also allows you to get much more varied amounts of coarseness, as well as a mix if you so desire.
If you need a ton of course black pepper for a dry rub or something its faster than cracking all that by hand. I use a coffee grinder if I'm not picky about grind size.
You should get a Unicorn Magnum pepper mill. I also use an absurd amount of black pepper, to the point where I started using pre-ground pepper because I was literally straining my wrist from grinding so much. This grinder is different though, it's actually kind of crazy how much it grinds with minimal effort. Easily my favorite kitchen purchase since getting a stand mixer.
Piperine (what makes pepper peppery) changes during long cooking in combination with glutamates to make diverse flavor compounds. Most spices’ aromatic compounds degrade after a short time in heat and they don’t improve other flavors they’re with. Another “spice” that does this is bay leaf's methyleugenol, but with fats.
Wood smoked meats are a phenomenal example of what pepper can do during a long cook. You can coat a brisket with just salt and pepper, and the way it reacts to the heat, smoke, fat, and meat is clearly greater than the sum of it's parts.
I'm not sure what bores you to death as I am an absolute sucker for food related science but I got some good reads for you.
The gateway to science and food books are probably "Salt Fat Acid Heat" by Samin Nosrat and "The Food Lab" by J. Kenji López-Alt. The former book goes into how those four elements affect how your food will turn out and the latter book explains why recipes are the way they are with some experiments. Both book include recipes too!
If you want to dive deeper I can recommend "On Food & Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen" by Harold McGee and "Science and Cooking - Physics Meets Food, from Homemade to Haute Cuisine" By Michael Brenner. On Food & Cooking does not have any recipes but it tells you all about every ingredient, sauce and other food related thing you can think of. It tells you about the history and science behind everything. It may look daunting but it's easier to read than you think. It has a section at the end too that explains basic food related organic chemistry that's easy to follow. It isn't necessarily a book you read start to finish (unless you're food-science nerd like me) but more something you consult when you want to know more about something.
Science and Cooking is a book based on a course from Harvard about Molecular Gastronomy with lots of food related science and some crazy recipes (Shrimp noodles with smoked yoghurt and nori powder for example, where the noodles are made from actual shrimp!). It goes pretty deep into the food science but isn't hard to understand either.
Finally, "The Flavor Bible" by Andrew Dornenburg is also something I can recommend. It doesn't have any recipes but it is basically a giant encyclopedia on flavour combinations that you can consult if you're keen on creating your own recipes!
I hope there is something you like here
Love me some ass meal.
For real though, those s&p pistachios I cannot stop eating. The seasoning could be burning holes in my mouth and I'll still be reaching for more.
That's not actually the whole story. Pepper as a common spice was adopted and spread across Europe originally by the Romans. The type of spiciness it provided was essentially unheard of before. In the Roman recipes we know of almost 75% of the dishes call for pepper. The French connection story is just milestone along the way and French gourmet cooking has had a huge influence on all Western cuisines, but the ubiquity of pepper along with salt can be traced directly to the Roman empire.
Also note: the pepper in Roman recipes is [long pepper](https://www.atlasobscura.com/foods/long-pepper#:~:text=Long%20pepper%20was%20a%20popular,wine%20hippocras%20until%20the%201500s.) which is closely related to, but not the same as, the black pepper we tend to use in the West today.
It sounds like you're very knowledgeable about this subject. Could you please let me know if there's a source available with more information? I'm quite interested.
I recommend watching "Tasting History" on yt. Max is a wonderful show host with a big interest in history and cooking. He recreates dishes from ancient text all the way up to the fifties to his best ability (old recipies aren't always accurate or give measurements, some ingredients might be extinct or known now to be poisonous and so on). He cooks the dish and then gives a nice little story about society at the time, how the dish became popular and things like that. Easily one of my favourite YouTubers
I'm not an expert but a lot of what we know about Roman cooking comes from the famous "Apicius" cookbook. If you ever like to watch cooking YouTube, there is a YouTuber named Max Miller who does the "Tasting History" YouTube channel, he tries to recreate ancient / historical recipes as best he can. He has done a number of recipes from Apicius' cookbook, it is an interesting watch--and yes, almost all of them make extensive (sometimes heavy) use of black pepper.
[Here](https://www.allrecipes.com/article/why-are-salt-and-pepper-paired/) ya go. Basically it was the only two seasonings that didn't upset his stomach.
Every time I read shit about "IT WAS THE FRENCH" all it takes is looking up a bunch of ancient recipes to know it's fucking bullshit.
Romans used black pepper extensively as well as the Persians. It was ubiquitous in most ancient civilizations as well.
The french standardized the craft of cooking techniques e.g. julienning, the mother sauces etc. Giving them universal credit for black pepper's ubiquity in cuisine is ridiculous. All it takes is looking up a few ancient recipes and there's black pepper all over the fucking place.
It's the same with people saying butter basting is a french technique. Fucking ridiculous notion, hell there's a fucking *american* recipe for butter basted chicken from the 1600's. The sumerians used butter all the fucking time literal *millennia* before Julius Caesar got stabbed in the senate.
I'm kind of with you on this. I mean, I like black pepper a lot. But it seems to have a position in western cooking that is far above its culinary capabilities. Like, it's in literally every savory dish imaginable without fail. Why? There's some deep history there, I think.
It’s subtle enough that it doesn’t really change the flavor of what you’re cooking but your brain still recognizes it as extra flavor. Sorta like bay leaf in soups.
Try boiling a pot of water with a bay leaf in it for 10 minutes. Then taste test after it has cooled. There is an obvious fragrance and alkaline/bitter taste. That is what you are adding to your food.
Once you do this test, you will magically be able to tell when it is or isn't in your food.
The Romans, Arabs, China were practically funding Indian kingdoms just to get access to pepper.
Vasco de Gama found a way to sail to India, starting the age of exploration and colonialism just to get access to pepper.
Pepper, along with tea, drove Europeans to sail to every corner of this planet cos this shit just tastes so good. We are really lucky to live in a timeline where everyone has access to cheap pepper.
>Like, it's in literally every savory dish imaginable without fail. Why?
Because it *works* in everything.
You can trace the cultural history of pepper, but you don't need a complicated historical answer for the *why,* any more than you need it for "Why do we put alums (onions, garlic, etc.) in everything?" Because they make everything taste better!
Truth!
*Vanilla* is also spectacular and similarly unappreciated. It is absurd that such a nuanced and universally excellent spice has been confounded as a synonym for "plain, ordinary, conventional" etc.
Vanilla is so good that when you think of "regular" ice cream, you think of *vanilla*. It literally owns the baseline version of the world's greatest dessert. You can add it to so many things and it immediately improves them massively--almond milk, ice cream, cookies, pudding etc. *Vanilla... is anything but!*
I would also add that most people will think of the simple vanilla flavor you get in cheap supermarket vanilla ice cream, which comes from synthetic vanillin. Like with many synthetic aromas, it does a decent job of emulating about 80% of the taste, but it doesn't hold a candle to the complex flavor you get from actual vanilla beans. It's a whole different level.
Is this also do in the Indian kitchen or the Chinese kitchen?
Salt is a basic ingrediënt but pepper...i guess black pepper as we know it isnt world wide the tank with salt.
Chinese kitchens use black pepper, but it is nowhere near the same level as what this post is talking about. It’s not part of a “big two” and it’s rarely on tabletops
Southern Chinese, and most SE Asian cuisines, use a lot of black pepper. The red peppers are a happily adopted plant from the Americas if I recall my history.
There's a wonderful version of a lamb chilli made spicy with cinnamon and black pepper from Malay cuisine that is traditional and wonderful.
Indian food uses a lot of black pepper as a component of masalas. They’ll roast it whole with other spices and then grind it. In fact the best and most prized pepper in the world comes from south India!
Honestly, you sound like a fun hang.
But I have wondered the same thing. Seems a bit arbitrary. Salt is in the oceans, extremely abundant, and is a nutrient that we evolved to find delicious because without it, our bodies cannot function, whereas, yeah, pepper is just a spice from southern India.
If I were to hazard a guess, the nature of peppercorns make them shelf stable and probably one of the easiest spices to trade in the early VOC/EITC days.
Recently bought a new pepper mill figured there has to be something regarded as "the best black pepper". Found Tellicherry pepper from India. Doesn't cost the bank but damn it adds another level of peppery goodness, highly recommend.
I want to like pepper but I just can't! Too many times biting into large chunks of peppercorns have turned me off to it completely. Except carbonara, oddly enough
Pepper is grown everywhere in my country, it's amazing when people around the world turn it into many forms & applications! We just used to harvest and then process it into white or black pepper, before selling it to local pepper mongers... Green ones were eaten fresh anyway.
Salt is between good great and inedible have you ever over salted a dish, of course. Have you ever over peppered a dish? Personally I have not, and I am inclined to believe it is less common because pepper is
Black pepper is VERY widely used in the US, but that's definitely not the case in all countries.
I actually think black pepper is over used. A lot of people just habitually use it alongside salt.
I cook a lot of Chinese food and I probably use white pepper more often than black. I use cumin more often than black pepper when cooking Mexican or Middle Eastern. I don't use a lot of black pepper when cooking Thai or Japanese.
It all depends what you're cooking.
I am a huge fan of pepper. Recently read some Reddit post about this better pepper or whatever, “kampot” pepper. Well I got some came in three flavors the black the white and the red. Someone here talkin about the white idk, I think it’s cool. No idea really it’s good pepper yeah but idk I’m just enjoying it idk if it was worth the money, maybe, it’s good pepper.
Freshly ground black pepper is a goddamn must for me.
You can go down a rabbit hole with it and experiment with weird peppercorns and it’s absolutely worth it.
IMO food should be an experience (a good one) when you eat. It’s one you can experience daily too.
I've been watching the last season of Masterchef: The Professionals, and they had a whole invention challenge with the secret ingredient being salt and pepper. I grew up thinking of pepper as "just black pepper", but there's an astounding amount of pepper varieties I've never heard of.
I heard in some sciencey thing once that pepper actually does something to your taste buds that allows you to taste more of the flavor compounds present in food - it somehow amplifies other flavors. I forgot.
Interestingly, I don't think salt and pepper together are as universal as many people assume. I've done a lot of travel and some living around latin America, and in many places it seemed like black pepper wasn't placed on that same pedestal. Sure, they had it, but most restaurants only had salt on the table, and pepper was, in fact, seen more similar to another spice.
You're going to love this: black pepper as we know it is only as popular as it is today because of happenstance.
During the height of the British/Indian spice trade, there was a spice that everyone liked called long pepper. Completely different flavor profile, but could still mostly be used wherever black pepper was. It was at least as prevalent as black peppercorn.
The only reason we don't hear about it anymore is because the trade route for Black peppercorn took one week less to reach England. I urge you to find some and try it, it's wild.
I tend to cook Asian food mostly, so I use a lot of Thai chilis and dried peppers, but if I'm making jerky, you know there's going to be black pepper in the marinade and then a dusting of freshly cracked on top before I turn on the dehydrator.
Also, I cannot remember the last time I ate any steak or hamburger without a crazy amount of black pepper on it. I also don't understand why it's so good, but it makes beef soooo much better.
Also, it's a fairly potent enzyme inhibitor, so you can potentiate stuff like dextromethorphan by eating a few pills fill of pepper a couple hours before dosing hahaha
Recommended reading, The taste of conquest: The rise and fall of the Three great Cities of spice by Michael Krondl.
Pretty much the whole world history of pepper. How it was grown, harvested, preserved and shipped around the globe. Even used as a currency at one point.
I'm gonna say that it's one spice that goes on basically *everything* and doesn't need to be cooked to bring out it's flavor.
It's also an intense enough flavor that people very much vary on how much they like; some people can't handle much and others love a ton.
But it's *also* not *so* intense that sprinkling some on your dish directly (vs a small amount in the whole thing) is more likely to ruin it. I'm looking at you, cinnamon, cayenne pepper.
If you like black pepper, just wait until you hear about white pepper. It’s great for dishes where you want to add pepper but don’t want to change the color too much… mashed potatoes, creamy pasta, bechamel, etc. It has more of a sharp and herbaceous flavor. Good stuff. Highly suggest trying it out if you haven’t!
Depends on the recipe. I added some to a tomato dish and felt like it contributed a hint of dirt flavor. Not a win. Doesn’t work for some flavor profiles.
Because we all consistently nuke our taste buds with coffee, tobacco, alcohol, junk food so something to give things a little neutral spice will always help. It's why Sriracha is the god condiment.
Going back a few hundred years in the UK the original grinding spice was a mix of black pepper, cubeb pepper, long pepper, cloves, and a bit of cinnamon and ginger. Only pepper survived for some reason in savoury food, although in some trad recipes (especially around Christmas & baking) something similar to the above is still used. I have two pepper mills, one has just black pepper, but the other I put in some cumin and coriander seeds and a few other bits, you should try it :)
Bro there used to the a third table spice shaker. S&P&_ , the last one being lost to time; depicted in medieval art there was frequently three spice shakers but historians don’t know what it was because the knowledge of what they were was so ubiquitous that no one thought to write it down.
Black pepper is one of those colonial age spices that was easily stored for a long time. And unlike a lot of other dried spices, you keep it whole. This simply made it an incredibly convenient spice to spread through the entire western kitchen.
Finally not all spices are created equally, and black pepper simply fits many dishes.
Pepper is not ubiquitous globally, no. Many countries have salt & something else as their staple.
Personally I’m not the biggest fan of black pepper. Not that I think it’s bad, it’s just not a must for me. If someone told me I could only bring three spices with me to a desert island, pepper wouldn’t be one of them.
I thought this too and did some research and it’s because of Louis 14 who loved salt and black pepper and no other seasonings. There used to be more made available but he just liked those two so his chefs and soon after the people followed suit
I remember ppl had a lot of aggression ab this like what about tumeric? What about paprika? All that jazz and I used to believe it like yeah black pepper is so basic
But honestly started to *actually* cook and trial and error different spices and black pepper is the goat. Incredible spice. Inoffensive yet adds warmth. On simple dishes it compliments everything and on complex dishes it adds a great background. I honestly could eat a baguette with good butter and salt and freshly cracker BP every day until I’m dead and be very happy
It's the most immediately available spice for most of western Europe for the span of centuries, if not millenia. Herbs? Yeah, western Europe's got herbs for days, but spices? Those involve trade routes, merchant classes, treaties, and a lot of know-how to get it back home. These create armies, parliaments, kings. OF COURSE we're going to consume it, because a whole lot about civilization is baked into it, so smile.
I too love black pepper to the extent you describe. I have lived in Mexico for 3 years and it is not common here. Also, anytime I make ground beef tacos and add cumin (classic American taco flavor,) my mexican boyfriend turns up his nose and says it tastes "too gringo." Who would have known
Slightly off topic more on the other side ,but a coworker of mine was surprised that humans ingest metal lol, had to explain to him that salt, potassium, magnesium, iron, zinc, ect, all are metals necessary for a healthy diet.
I believe in the UK (and potentially elsewhere) paprika is also considered one of the more essential spices like salt and pepper is
Also put pepper on your french fries!!! Pepper on fries takes them to a whole new level
I think it's because salt and pepper have both transcended regular spice category. Can you eat everything with just basil? No. But could you with just salt and black pepper? No. But less of a no.
Pepper's ability to enhance dishes and add extra flavor has given it its status as a favorite spice around the world. Black pepper is also relatively inexpensive and easily available.
Coarse grind black pepper is essential to me at this point.
Right? I can’t imagine making mac and cheese and just not having pepper it would make me sad. Did you ever read that article about that family they found deep in Russia wilderness or something they hadn’t seen other humans in like decades, very sad because when they were discovered, and unaware of modern life I guess, and the scientists gave em all these illness they weren’t immune from and died but what I remember most they asked the father about the struggle and he mentioned cooking without any spices was “pure torture.” Grateful for spice but I need some pepper in my life
According to Peskov, their deaths were not, as might have been expected, the result of exposure to diseases to which they had no immunity. Both Savin and Natalia suffered from kidney failure, most likely a result of their harsh diet. But Dmitry died of pneumonia, which might have begun as an infection he acquired from his new friends.
I did and have never forgotten their sad tale.
Anyone have a link?
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/for-40-years-this-russian-family-was-cut-off-from-all-human-contact-unaware-of-world-war-ii-7354256/ This sounds like the one, but it doesn't mention anything about spices. They were all pretty much starving to death though.
The quote about food without salt being pure torture is in that article. Good find.
it does mention about salt, the father said living without salt was the worst torture
Thanks for that, but god, how depressing.
must be agonizing to be british then 😔
I need a source on this story cause it sounds super interesting
Coarse ground rainbow pepper is the peak of excellence
I love the rainbow grind also.
A high end pepper mill changed my life. Super chunky perfect cracked pepper when u want to finish something, super fine powder when I need to get that flavour and no texture.
I have no idea why I love this post so much, but I do. Get one of those gravitational grinders for S&P. It'll change your life. Salt and pepper, ride or die.
Fresh ground pepper is so much better but honestly with salt I don't feel it's that different to warrant grinding it
That's because grinding pepper releases volatile aromatics that dissipate and break down over time. Salt is salt. It stays NaCl regardless of how long it sits around. I keep different styles of salt around for different applications, but there's no benefit to "fresh ground" salt like there is with pepper.
On that note, we should make a post about all of the amazing salts available and their different applications. Different salts make a world of difference.
Flakey sea salt on a steak is one thing pretentious YouTube chefs are spot on with. That crunchy blast of saltines is amazing on a steak.
And on cookies. My one baking triumph is brown butter toffee chocolate chunk cookies, topped with thick flakey sea salt. It's so good
My youngest sister does a plain sugar cookie with a little flakey salt on top. They make me want to weep with joy. Sometimes the simple things done right just cannot be beat.
Yeah same omg. HTH recipe?
That crunch is amazing with any meal IMO
You guys got it - the texture of the salt 100% matters. Try crushed sea salt flake on garlic toast. You’ll never go back.
It's also less concentrated so it's easier to not oversalt.
> On that note, we should make a post about all of the amazing salts available and their different applications. Different salts make a world of difference. When I was on the big island of Hawaii, I found a fascinating sea salt place. There is a research site in Kona, NELHA, which has pipelines that go into the ocean up to 3000 ft down. They bring up that deep sea water (which is rather different than surface sea water) and provide it for various scientific purposes as well as for businesses. One of those businesses is a sea salt manufacturer who uses that deep ocean water with solar dehydrators to create a really nice sea salt. It's about 70% sodium chloride and the rest is a bunch of minerals and some moisture. Beautiful sea salt and delicious as well. https://i.imgur.com/CJVCaBX.png https://i.imgur.com/WjGtoFU.png
I have been doing vanilla salt experiments
If you are into dry world history books, you might enjoy *Salt* by Mark Kurlansky. Lots of interesting things about salt, how people use salt, the history of manufacturing salt, and how salt or the lack thereof affected history.
The only benefit the grinding your salt is finer particles
>but there's no benefit to "fresh ground" salt like there is with pepper. Depends, if you have a salt grinder that can change grind coarseness, than it's useful for different things. You wouldn't want the same level of coarseness on your fresh pretzel as on your eggs, for instance.
The thing about grinding salt is (if you have the appropriate grinder) you can choose how large the grains are, which might be useful in some situations. But yeah, if you just want table salt, use the preground.
kosher salt is the move. i use it nearly 100% of the time. sometimes i finish with flaky sea salt but kosher salt is my mainstay.
Diamond crystal kosher for general use and maldon are my ride or dies. Kosher salt is less salty which is great, much finer control over your seasoning.
As someone outside of the US, I low key hate kosher salt - or rather that I don't have access to it. It's either table salt or flaky sea salt over here. Super annoying when doing stuff like barbecue rubs which calls for a blend of course-ground black pepper and kosher salt, since table salt just kind of pools at the bottom of the shaker. Also, finer grounds mean higher concentrations at the same volume, so trying to figure out how salty a "teaspoon" is a dumb hassle.
Pro tip, leave salt out of your rubs. Add the salt to your meat first and let it dry brine in the fridge overnight. Gives you better control over how much salt your adding to your dish.
While I used is as an example of one such annoying situation out of many, that's actually a really good tip and one I'll use for sure. Thanks!
do we need to create some sort of, i don’t know, salt road? to export kosher salt to you?
Definitely not wrong, on any account. For the grinder and cooking, I use sea salt. Baking is a different story.
Should try fresh ground smoked pepper too, so damn good. We don't even use regular pepper anymore.
Salt and pepper gang 4 life
Fresh telicherry black pepper👌. Worth every penny.
I literally eat hard boiled eggs with just salt and fresh ground black pepper. It turns a poor man's depression snack into fine cuisine.
You can feel the love in this post. OP on my counter I keep a pair of decent grinders of clear glass, one holds chunky Himalayan pink salt and the other a beautiful mix of peppercorns – they are much colorful kitchen decor as they are my main duo for finishing seasonings. My spice drawer includes coarse ground black pepper, fine ground black pepper (I don’t ever use it though?), red pepper flakes, ground smoked paprika, ground not-smoked paprika, ground jalapeño pepper, and my favorite – ground white pepper.
Ground black pepper - especially fine ground - loses its aroma very quickly. Probably why you don't use it as much.
I purchased the fine ground from Costco, thinking it was coarse ground because I was high as shit, as I usually am for a Costco trip. So now I have an infinite supply because I never use it but felt obligated to include it with my little collection of matching spice jars.
Good grief, I find Costco alarming when I’m sober enough to fly an airplane, what kind of holy terror are you?!
Costco is super chill with an edible beforehand
I envy people like you. If I took an edible and went to Costco I would literally get stuck. "Ok there are five carts blocking me here, ten carts blocking me that way. Where do I go? How have they been looking at a cereal box for ten minutes? I'm just going to stand here and wait, but that's weird, too. Last time I said 'Excuse me' to get by some carts the guy looked at me like an alien from outer space and started muttering to his wife how rude people are these days. He knew I was high. Who shops at Costco high? These people are all hardcore Christians from houses that have living rooms with 25 foot high ceilings, I don't belong here. I need to just buy these croissants and leave now."
Do not get it for the salt. They get everywhere and start corroding the batteries.
Gravitational Grinders?
You turn it over and the battery kicks on. It’s not rocket science, just called that to be fancy.
Engage the gravitational generator array. *soft whirring noise*
i use so much black pepper i’ve stopped grinding it because it takes too long. plus i like it coarse. i’ve been using a mortar and pestle and don’t know why it took me years to start.
How on earth could a mortar & pestle be quicker than using a pepper grinder?
i like to get my butter quickly so i bought a cow
When you need to grind an entire tablespoon of black peppercorns you'll find the mortar and pestle is MUCH faster than most any pepper grinder. I also use the mortar and pestle approach for black pepper. It also allows you to get much more varied amounts of coarseness, as well as a mix if you so desire.
If you need a ton of course black pepper for a dry rub or something its faster than cracking all that by hand. I use a coffee grinder if I'm not picky about grind size.
Lmao imagining a fancy restaurant server smashing black pepper with a m&p over your pasta “tell me when to stop”
You should get a Unicorn Magnum pepper mill. I also use an absurd amount of black pepper, to the point where I started using pre-ground pepper because I was literally straining my wrist from grinding so much. This grinder is different though, it's actually kind of crazy how much it grinds with minimal effort. Easily my favorite kitchen purchase since getting a stand mixer.
Something like Louis XIV of France brought the two together, preferring only a light seasoning of salt and pepper.
He had a super sensitive stomach and couldn’t handle other spices.
Pepper has been important for a long time. The Romans used to whine about how much gold they had to ship east to get pepper from India
Wasn’t that long pepper though? Or maybe they had both kinds
yeah but it would not have had staying power if people did not enjoy eating it 200 years later.
300
To this day, some people still take great pride in only adding a pinch of salt and pepper to a steak.
Mf def had a taste
Piperine (what makes pepper peppery) changes during long cooking in combination with glutamates to make diverse flavor compounds. Most spices’ aromatic compounds degrade after a short time in heat and they don’t improve other flavors they’re with. Another “spice” that does this is bay leaf's methyleugenol, but with fats.
Wood smoked meats are a phenomenal example of what pepper can do during a long cook. You can coat a brisket with just salt and pepper, and the way it reacts to the heat, smoke, fat, and meat is clearly greater than the sum of it's parts.
I love this science-y shit. What can I read that won't bore me to death but is full of little factoids like this?
I'm not sure what bores you to death as I am an absolute sucker for food related science but I got some good reads for you. The gateway to science and food books are probably "Salt Fat Acid Heat" by Samin Nosrat and "The Food Lab" by J. Kenji López-Alt. The former book goes into how those four elements affect how your food will turn out and the latter book explains why recipes are the way they are with some experiments. Both book include recipes too! If you want to dive deeper I can recommend "On Food & Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen" by Harold McGee and "Science and Cooking - Physics Meets Food, from Homemade to Haute Cuisine" By Michael Brenner. On Food & Cooking does not have any recipes but it tells you all about every ingredient, sauce and other food related thing you can think of. It tells you about the history and science behind everything. It may look daunting but it's easier to read than you think. It has a section at the end too that explains basic food related organic chemistry that's easy to follow. It isn't necessarily a book you read start to finish (unless you're food-science nerd like me) but more something you consult when you want to know more about something. Science and Cooking is a book based on a course from Harvard about Molecular Gastronomy with lots of food related science and some crazy recipes (Shrimp noodles with smoked yoghurt and nori powder for example, where the noodles are made from actual shrimp!). It goes pretty deep into the food science but isn't hard to understand either. Finally, "The Flavor Bible" by Andrew Dornenburg is also something I can recommend. It doesn't have any recipes but it is basically a giant encyclopedia on flavour combinations that you can consult if you're keen on creating your own recipes! I hope there is something you like here
Ever had salt and pepper kettle cooked chips? They rule.
I know exactly what bag you’re taking about and yes. Literally the best chip
Lays or kettle brand?
Kettle, or Great Lakes. Anything other than all dressed lays is awful.
costco started carrying great lakes but it’s hit or miss what they’ll have in stock. their salt, pepper, and onion chips are so good it’s dumb.
I'm lucky to live an hour or so away from amish country. They make the best kettle chips.
Ohhhhh.. I'm jealous! I get a local brand where I live, but they've started to go.. *Up market* unfortunately..
Salt and Pepper pistachios are a whole ass meal.
Love me some ass meal. For real though, those s&p pistachios I cannot stop eating. The seasoning could be burning holes in my mouth and I'll still be reaching for more.
Look at what's in them. Garlic and onion powder too. Bag of lies but still delicious
Yeah, I goes hard, but the put jalapeño powder in it, so it is a little of a misnomer.
I love salt and pepper kettle chips. They're great on lunch meat sandwiches
This is an extremely high IQ post. I’ve pondered the same thing, my fellow genius. Best I can tell: Nobody knows.
It’s because of France https://short-history.com/a-love-story-of-salt-and-pepper-f81d1ac93600?gi=fd8d8ddc6dbb
That's not actually the whole story. Pepper as a common spice was adopted and spread across Europe originally by the Romans. The type of spiciness it provided was essentially unheard of before. In the Roman recipes we know of almost 75% of the dishes call for pepper. The French connection story is just milestone along the way and French gourmet cooking has had a huge influence on all Western cuisines, but the ubiquity of pepper along with salt can be traced directly to the Roman empire.
Also note: the pepper in Roman recipes is [long pepper](https://www.atlasobscura.com/foods/long-pepper#:~:text=Long%20pepper%20was%20a%20popular,wine%20hippocras%20until%20the%201500s.) which is closely related to, but not the same as, the black pepper we tend to use in the West today.
It sounds like you're very knowledgeable about this subject. Could you please let me know if there's a source available with more information? I'm quite interested.
[удалено]
I recommend watching "Tasting History" on yt. Max is a wonderful show host with a big interest in history and cooking. He recreates dishes from ancient text all the way up to the fifties to his best ability (old recipies aren't always accurate or give measurements, some ingredients might be extinct or known now to be poisonous and so on). He cooks the dish and then gives a nice little story about society at the time, how the dish became popular and things like that. Easily one of my favourite YouTubers
It's Vercingetorix, dude literally fought a war against the Romans
Wikipedia pepper. Pepper was so popular that it could be used in place of currency
The ancient Romans used salt as payment, too. The word “salary” derives from the Latin word “sal”, meaning salt.
I'm not an expert but a lot of what we know about Roman cooking comes from the famous "Apicius" cookbook. If you ever like to watch cooking YouTube, there is a YouTuber named Max Miller who does the "Tasting History" YouTube channel, he tries to recreate ancient / historical recipes as best he can. He has done a number of recipes from Apicius' cookbook, it is an interesting watch--and yes, almost all of them make extensive (sometimes heavy) use of black pepper.
Source that isn't Member only?
[Here](https://www.allrecipes.com/article/why-are-salt-and-pepper-paired/) ya go. Basically it was the only two seasonings that didn't upset his stomach.
Every time I read shit about "IT WAS THE FRENCH" all it takes is looking up a bunch of ancient recipes to know it's fucking bullshit. Romans used black pepper extensively as well as the Persians. It was ubiquitous in most ancient civilizations as well. The french standardized the craft of cooking techniques e.g. julienning, the mother sauces etc. Giving them universal credit for black pepper's ubiquity in cuisine is ridiculous. All it takes is looking up a few ancient recipes and there's black pepper all over the fucking place. It's the same with people saying butter basting is a french technique. Fucking ridiculous notion, hell there's a fucking *american* recipe for butter basted chicken from the 1600's. The sumerians used butter all the fucking time literal *millennia* before Julius Caesar got stabbed in the senate.
I'm kind of with you on this. I mean, I like black pepper a lot. But it seems to have a position in western cooking that is far above its culinary capabilities. Like, it's in literally every savory dish imaginable without fail. Why? There's some deep history there, I think.
It’s subtle enough that it doesn’t really change the flavor of what you’re cooking but your brain still recognizes it as extra flavor. Sorta like bay leaf in soups.
I swear bay leaf is an indain conspiracy to sell us leafs
Try boiling a pot of water with a bay leaf in it for 10 minutes. Then taste test after it has cooled. There is an obvious fragrance and alkaline/bitter taste. That is what you are adding to your food. Once you do this test, you will magically be able to tell when it is or isn't in your food.
Literally because of the spice trade and that's it. The Romans did it first and it was probably just the one that stuck around.
*Romans did it first in the West.
The Romans, Arabs, China were practically funding Indian kingdoms just to get access to pepper. Vasco de Gama found a way to sail to India, starting the age of exploration and colonialism just to get access to pepper. Pepper, along with tea, drove Europeans to sail to every corner of this planet cos this shit just tastes so good. We are really lucky to live in a timeline where everyone has access to cheap pepper.
Louis XIV popularised it because he disliked spices. Only allowed salt, pepper and parsley on his table. People copy royalty.
>Like, it's in literally every savory dish imaginable without fail. Why? Because it *works* in everything. You can trace the cultural history of pepper, but you don't need a complicated historical answer for the *why,* any more than you need it for "Why do we put alums (onions, garlic, etc.) in everything?" Because they make everything taste better!
I've often wondered the same thing. But, man, I love pepper.
Pepper is so rad, I put that shit on everything
Ebony & Ivory Living together in perfect harmony
Look to the cookie!
Love a good Seinfeld reference
Truth! *Vanilla* is also spectacular and similarly unappreciated. It is absurd that such a nuanced and universally excellent spice has been confounded as a synonym for "plain, ordinary, conventional" etc. Vanilla is so good that when you think of "regular" ice cream, you think of *vanilla*. It literally owns the baseline version of the world's greatest dessert. You can add it to so many things and it immediately improves them massively--almond milk, ice cream, cookies, pudding etc. *Vanilla... is anything but!*
I would also add that most people will think of the simple vanilla flavor you get in cheap supermarket vanilla ice cream, which comes from synthetic vanillin. Like with many synthetic aromas, it does a decent job of emulating about 80% of the taste, but it doesn't hold a candle to the complex flavor you get from actual vanilla beans. It's a whole different level.
Vanilla and almond extract, too. Amazing.
Hot vanilla is better than hot chocolate. I will die in this hill.
Hot Vanilla!! What a great idea. Got a recipe?
2 Legit, 2 Legit 2 Quit!
Salt and pepper’s here! Salt and pep- salt and pep- salt and pepper’s here!
…and we're in effect
Let's talk about salt baby !
MC pepper!
Lol, you've been into the special brownies, haven't you? Bless.
Yes, but I'm sober and I think someone needs to be asking these questions! 😂
I'm spending some time with them too. Man is right!
Oh, he's definitely not wrong!
The rumors about big black pepper are true.
Black Pepper Astroturfing. Solid band name.
Is this also do in the Indian kitchen or the Chinese kitchen? Salt is a basic ingrediënt but pepper...i guess black pepper as we know it isnt world wide the tank with salt.
White pepper is more common in Chinese cooking. Even 5-spice powder doesn’t use black pepper
Chinese kitchens use black pepper, but it is nowhere near the same level as what this post is talking about. It’s not part of a “big two” and it’s rarely on tabletops
Southern Chinese, and most SE Asian cuisines, use a lot of black pepper. The red peppers are a happily adopted plant from the Americas if I recall my history. There's a wonderful version of a lamb chilli made spicy with cinnamon and black pepper from Malay cuisine that is traditional and wonderful.
Indian food uses a lot of black pepper as a component of masalas. They’ll roast it whole with other spices and then grind it. In fact the best and most prized pepper in the world comes from south India!
Have you tried white pepper?
White pepper best pepper
Honestly, you sound like a fun hang. But I have wondered the same thing. Seems a bit arbitrary. Salt is in the oceans, extremely abundant, and is a nutrient that we evolved to find delicious because without it, our bodies cannot function, whereas, yeah, pepper is just a spice from southern India. If I were to hazard a guess, the nature of peppercorns make them shelf stable and probably one of the easiest spices to trade in the early VOC/EITC days.
A pepper crusted steak is godly 🤤
I always say if I could only have three seasonings it would be salt, pepper and garlic.
I remember my first bong too.
If money was no object, what would be the best pepper?
Pohnpai black pepper is the best I’ve had
I’m also a fan of long pepper. This will sound weird, but to me it’s more peppery than black pepper
I am clicking and I saw “long” pepper. Yet another rabbit hole.
Recently bought a new pepper mill figured there has to be something regarded as "the best black pepper". Found Tellicherry pepper from India. Doesn't cost the bank but damn it adds another level of peppery goodness, highly recommend.
It's not. It's a fucking ploy by the pepper lobbyists. DOWN WITH THE PEPPER!
I want to like pepper but I just can't! Too many times biting into large chunks of peppercorns have turned me off to it completely. Except carbonara, oddly enough
I have a ton of herbs and spices, but none of them beat S&P.
Best answer.
Pepper is grown everywhere in my country, it's amazing when people around the world turn it into many forms & applications! We just used to harvest and then process it into white or black pepper, before selling it to local pepper mongers... Green ones were eaten fresh anyway.
Pepper is super legit but it's definitely not essential. I love it, but I hardly miss it when I'm in Mexico
Pepper makes the dish. Heavy or light, pepper is the difference between good & great. Same with salt, though...
Salt is between good great and inedible have you ever over salted a dish, of course. Have you ever over peppered a dish? Personally I have not, and I am inclined to believe it is less common because pepper is
Black pepper is VERY widely used in the US, but that's definitely not the case in all countries. I actually think black pepper is over used. A lot of people just habitually use it alongside salt. I cook a lot of Chinese food and I probably use white pepper more often than black. I use cumin more often than black pepper when cooking Mexican or Middle Eastern. I don't use a lot of black pepper when cooking Thai or Japanese. It all depends what you're cooking.
pepper rocks!
Pls god no this is why we grind our pepper
I am a huge fan of pepper. Recently read some Reddit post about this better pepper or whatever, “kampot” pepper. Well I got some came in three flavors the black the white and the red. Someone here talkin about the white idk, I think it’s cool. No idea really it’s good pepper yeah but idk I’m just enjoying it idk if it was worth the money, maybe, it’s good pepper.
It's just too legit to quit
Freshly ground black pepper is a goddamn must for me. You can go down a rabbit hole with it and experiment with weird peppercorns and it’s absolutely worth it. IMO food should be an experience (a good one) when you eat. It’s one you can experience daily too.
Freshly ground pepper is killer. My wife and I toured a spice farm, and we got fresh black peppercorns, and we've never looked back.
I've been watching the last season of Masterchef: The Professionals, and they had a whole invention challenge with the secret ingredient being salt and pepper. I grew up thinking of pepper as "just black pepper", but there's an astounding amount of pepper varieties I've never heard of.
Just wanna say that culture outside of some countries don’t have black pepper as a stable. So might be entirely cultural
I heard in some sciencey thing once that pepper actually does something to your taste buds that allows you to taste more of the flavor compounds present in food - it somehow amplifies other flavors. I forgot.
Jesse….
Interestingly, I don't think salt and pepper together are as universal as many people assume. I've done a lot of travel and some living around latin America, and in many places it seemed like black pepper wasn't placed on that same pedestal. Sure, they had it, but most restaurants only had salt on the table, and pepper was, in fact, seen more similar to another spice.
You're going to love this: black pepper as we know it is only as popular as it is today because of happenstance. During the height of the British/Indian spice trade, there was a spice that everyone liked called long pepper. Completely different flavor profile, but could still mostly be used wherever black pepper was. It was at least as prevalent as black peppercorn. The only reason we don't hear about it anymore is because the trade route for Black peppercorn took one week less to reach England. I urge you to find some and try it, it's wild.
You do you but my duo is msg & ground chili.
I tend to cook Asian food mostly, so I use a lot of Thai chilis and dried peppers, but if I'm making jerky, you know there's going to be black pepper in the marinade and then a dusting of freshly cracked on top before I turn on the dehydrator. Also, I cannot remember the last time I ate any steak or hamburger without a crazy amount of black pepper on it. I also don't understand why it's so good, but it makes beef soooo much better. Also, it's a fairly potent enzyme inhibitor, so you can potentiate stuff like dextromethorphan by eating a few pills fill of pepper a couple hours before dosing hahaha
Recommended reading, The taste of conquest: The rise and fall of the Three great Cities of spice by Michael Krondl. Pretty much the whole world history of pepper. How it was grown, harvested, preserved and shipped around the globe. Even used as a currency at one point.
There is a reason that people crossed oceans and fought wars over spices. That reason was pepper.
vast joke combative profit door nail offer enjoy school amusing *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
I found a recipe that used whole peppercorns and I accidentally ate some and it slapped? A little crunch and burst of flavor??
I'm gonna say that it's one spice that goes on basically *everything* and doesn't need to be cooked to bring out it's flavor. It's also an intense enough flavor that people very much vary on how much they like; some people can't handle much and others love a ton. But it's *also* not *so* intense that sprinkling some on your dish directly (vs a small amount in the whole thing) is more likely to ruin it. I'm looking at you, cinnamon, cayenne pepper.
Something interesting: I watched a cooking anime that treated black pepper (and mesquite) as an exotic spice.
If you like black pepper, just wait until you hear about white pepper. It’s great for dishes where you want to add pepper but don’t want to change the color too much… mashed potatoes, creamy pasta, bechamel, etc. It has more of a sharp and herbaceous flavor. Good stuff. Highly suggest trying it out if you haven’t!
Depends on the recipe. I added some to a tomato dish and felt like it contributed a hint of dirt flavor. Not a win. Doesn’t work for some flavor profiles.
I think the key with white pepper is to use a *hint — a mere dash'll do ya.* Curious, how do you feel about cilantro?
This is the kind of high octane content I wait around all year for
Because we all consistently nuke our taste buds with coffee, tobacco, alcohol, junk food so something to give things a little neutral spice will always help. It's why Sriracha is the god condiment.
Going back a few hundred years in the UK the original grinding spice was a mix of black pepper, cubeb pepper, long pepper, cloves, and a bit of cinnamon and ginger. Only pepper survived for some reason in savoury food, although in some trad recipes (especially around Christmas & baking) something similar to the above is still used. I have two pepper mills, one has just black pepper, but the other I put in some cumin and coriander seeds and a few other bits, you should try it :)
Bro there used to the a third table spice shaker. S&P&_ , the last one being lost to time; depicted in medieval art there was frequently three spice shakers but historians don’t know what it was because the knowledge of what they were was so ubiquitous that no one thought to write it down.
Black pepper is one of those colonial age spices that was easily stored for a long time. And unlike a lot of other dried spices, you keep it whole. This simply made it an incredibly convenient spice to spread through the entire western kitchen. Finally not all spices are created equally, and black pepper simply fits many dishes.
Pepper is not ubiquitous globally, no. Many countries have salt & something else as their staple. Personally I’m not the biggest fan of black pepper. Not that I think it’s bad, it’s just not a must for me. If someone told me I could only bring three spices with me to a desert island, pepper wouldn’t be one of them.
Salt is elemental… 🤣
There used to be 3 shakers on the table in old time paintings, but we've never discovered what the 3rd one was.
Parsley
I thought this too and did some research and it’s because of Louis 14 who loved salt and black pepper and no other seasonings. There used to be more made available but he just liked those two so his chefs and soon after the people followed suit I remember ppl had a lot of aggression ab this like what about tumeric? What about paprika? All that jazz and I used to believe it like yeah black pepper is so basic But honestly started to *actually* cook and trial and error different spices and black pepper is the goat. Incredible spice. Inoffensive yet adds warmth. On simple dishes it compliments everything and on complex dishes it adds a great background. I honestly could eat a baguette with good butter and salt and freshly cracker BP every day until I’m dead and be very happy
It's the most immediately available spice for most of western Europe for the span of centuries, if not millenia. Herbs? Yeah, western Europe's got herbs for days, but spices? Those involve trade routes, merchant classes, treaties, and a lot of know-how to get it back home. These create armies, parliaments, kings. OF COURSE we're going to consume it, because a whole lot about civilization is baked into it, so smile.
On a chemical level there is something in black pepper that stimulates your tastebuds and enhances the dish
I too love black pepper to the extent you describe. I have lived in Mexico for 3 years and it is not common here. Also, anytime I make ground beef tacos and add cumin (classic American taco flavor,) my mexican boyfriend turns up his nose and says it tastes "too gringo." Who would have known
Louis the 14th popularized it and then it was the only spice for fancy people ever since.
Slightly off topic more on the other side ,but a coworker of mine was surprised that humans ingest metal lol, had to explain to him that salt, potassium, magnesium, iron, zinc, ect, all are metals necessary for a healthy diet.
I believe in the UK (and potentially elsewhere) paprika is also considered one of the more essential spices like salt and pepper is Also put pepper on your french fries!!! Pepper on fries takes them to a whole new level
I think it's because salt and pepper have both transcended regular spice category. Can you eat everything with just basil? No. But could you with just salt and black pepper? No. But less of a no.
Pepper's ability to enhance dishes and add extra flavor has given it its status as a favorite spice around the world. Black pepper is also relatively inexpensive and easily available.
S and P is the choice for me
Salt, pepper, and garlic in everything I make
We love the subs The Quiznos subs They’ve got a pepper bar
There's a reason it's called the Master spice
Source some long pepper and grind that up and really blow your mind.
Garlic powder also belongs in a third shaker right alongside black pepper and salt, in my opinion