All about Peppers, Nutmeg, and Cloves.
Pepper's origin is India. Pepper is one of the most common spices to be used. A pound of pepper was so valuable that it could free a slave from a nobleman back in the medieval times. Noblemen were highly respected and they were treated like a king. People would travel across the oceans to find pepper. The main producers today are the equatorial regions of India,Brazil, Indonesia, and Malaysia. It is assumed that the Arab traders introduced pepper to Europe,initially by the ancient spice routes that led through Damascus and across the Red sea. Pepper was known in Greece by the fifth century B.C. At that time its use was medicinal rather than culinary. You are probably wondering how and why they used pepper as a medicine.
Peppercorns contain an impressive list of plant derived chemical compounds that are known to have disease preventing and health promoting properties. Black peppers have been in use since centuries for their anti-inflammatory, carminative, anti-flatulent properties. The definition for anti-inflammatory is used to reduce inflammation. The definition for carminative is drug that relieves flatulence. They also used pepper for cooking purposes. They used pepper for cooking by sprinkling a little on their food or when they salt the food to preserve the food. They didn't have refrigerator so the food would go bad in a short period of time so when they salted their food to preserve it they would sprinkle pepper to cover up the bad taste of the bad meat.
Peppercorns contain an impressive list of plant derived chemical compounds that are known to have disease preventing and health promoting properties. Black peppers have been in use since centuries for their anti-inflammatory, carminative, anti-flatulent properties. The definition for anti-inflammatory is used to reduce inflammation. The definition for carminative is drug that relieves flatulence. They also used pepper for cooking purposes. They used pepper for cooking by sprinkling a little on their food or when they salt the food to preserve the food. They didn't have refrigerator so the food would go bad in a short period of time so when they salted their food to preserve it they would sprinkle pepper to cover up the bad taste of the bad meat.
Nutmeg and Cloves
Cloves and Nutmeg come from different plant families and from a remote island groups separated by hundred of miles of mainly open sea, their distinctively different odors are due to extremely similar molecules. The main component of oil of cloves is eugenol; the fragrant compound in oil of nutmeg is isoegenol. The two aromatic molecules both smell and chemical structure- differ only in the position of a double bond. The similarities between the structures of these two compounds and of zingerone are also obvious. ( you can see the similarities in the slide show above the passage.) Plants don't produce these highly scented molecules for our benefit. As they cannot retreat from grazing animals, from sap-sucking and leaf eating bugs or from fungal infestations, plants protect themselves with chemical warfare involving molecules such as eugenol, isoeugenol, piperine, capsaicin, and zingerone.
These molecules are natural pesticides meaning that the are very potent. Human can consume such compounds in small amounts since the detoxification process that occurs in our livers is very efficient. While a massive dose of a particular compound could theoretically overpower one of the liver's many metabolic pathways, it's reassuring to know that ingesting enough pepper or cloves to do this would be quiet difficult.
Oil from Cloves were used as a powerful antiseptic and a remedy for toothaches. It still is still sometimes used as a tropical anesthetic in dentistry. Nutmeg was used for stomach pain medicine and to help with colic.