The next time you grind a little black pepper on your steak, think about this: The pepper trade was responsible for the deaths of thousands of people, the enslavement of countless others, the establishment of the opium trade in India and the extinction of the dodo.
Marjorie Shaffer, a science writer and editor at the New York University School of Medicine, thoroughly examines our culinary friend in Pepper: A History of the World’s Most Influential Spice (St. Martin’s Press).
Pepper was used by the Greeks, Romans and Chinese for medicinal purposes. In medieval times, it was used as currency, at times worth more than gold or silver. And the pepper trade, with its substantial import duties, contributed mightily to the treasury of a fledgling United States in the early 19th century.
Pepper, a dried berry from a vine indigenous to India, is a tropical plant and won’t grow just anywhere. Columbus didn’t sail from Spain looking for Ohio; he was seeking the Far East and its spices, i.e., pepper.
European explorers and traders in the 17th and 18th centuries had much the same goal, though the primary traders, the Dutch and English, were much more aggressive. Such commerce didn’t come without a price. Ships could lose a third or more of their crew on the long journeys. Those who survived left a lasting mark on the native people they dealt with — conquest, imperialism, slavery and genocide, as Shaffer details — and the islands they visited, wiping out entire populations of birds, tortoises and other creatures.
