PEPPER gives wholesome taste to any curry. It blends inconspicuously with the thick textured gravy of a curry; but neglect including it, and you come up with a bland dish begging to be forgotten. That is what a few peppercorns can do to your food. Black pepper is called the King of Spices because it is a key ingredient in the spice blend of most curries. As few as 6-8 peppercorns are enough to give the desired flavour.

Dried, black peppercorns are used whole, powdered or crushed. Ground black pepper is made from dried unripened berries of pepper vines, which are creepers that clamber tenaciously up huge mango trees, with the peppercorns or berries huddling together in bright green clusters like bunches of grapes. Only these peppercorns are much smaller in size.

The tiny peppercorns are laboriously hand-picked while still green and then spread on palm leaf mats to dry in the sun. The peppercorns shrivel up and become sable-black in colour and when added to the curry at the beginning or the end of cooking, give a heady pungent aroma and a subtle flavour to the dish.

Pepper vines are indigenous to the Malabar coast where more than 24 varieties of pepper are grown. It is the black pepper, Kerala's wealth, that transformed the sea ports of Cochin and Calicut for the worldwide spice trade. In the 15th century Vasco da Gama discovered this round black spice. And pepper soon found its way to many other countries. Kerala now uses pepper to spice its curries, sauces, meats and marinades.

However, the British popularised pepper with their "Pepper Water"... a mulligatawny soup (Molagu-tanni in Tamil), which is of great medicinal use in the treatment of colds. While black pepper is used to make herbal tea, it is the green pepper that is usually pickled. It is used in garam masala too. Pepper is a stimulant, digestive and diuretic.

In the north pepper flavours meat; in the south, it flavours lentils; in the east, fish; and in the west, vegetables. Ground pepper loses its flavour quickly, so it is advisable to powder your own at home. While buying pepper, look for the bigger berries. As a rule, the bigger the berries the better is the pepper.