A very big part of the history of the modern world is the history of spices, and the story starts with an unprepossessing vine that once grew only on the Malabar coast of southwestern India. The vine is called Piper nigrum. If presented with it in its natural state, you would almost certainly struggle to guess its importance, but it is the source of all three “true” peppers—black, white, and green. The little round, hard peppercorns that we pour into our household pepper mills are actually the vine’s tiny fruit, dried to pack a gritty kick.* The difference between the varieties is simply a
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