Healthy Diet Many different types of pepper

Pepper is not the same pepper: From Cayenne to Szechuan
The spice rack and the Internet offer many different pepper specialties. But this is not necessarily "real pepper", which is available in black, white and green. Real pepper is always obtained from the evergreen pepper shrub (Piper nigrum).

Some variants are closely related to the real pepper. They come from a different species in the family of pepper plants such as the long pepper (Piper longum) and Java pepper (Piper retrofractum). The berries are grown into a rod about three centimeters long and taste sweet and sour and even sharper than real pepper. Most of the bars are mitgegart completely and then removed. But it can also be broken pieces and crushed in a mortar or ground. In traditional Indian medicine Ayurveda, the long pepper is used to stimulate digestion and purify the body.
Kubeben pepper (Piper cubeba) was a cheap substitute for real pepper in 16th century Europe. The short-stalk black-brown grains have a sharp and bitter taste with a slight eucalyptus note and are part of the Moroccan spice blend "Ras el Hanout". They are often combined with real pepper and cinnamon and should be used sparingly.

Image: fotojob - fotolia

Szechuan pepper is obtained from species such as Zanthoxylum piperitum from the family of the rhododendron family. You break open the dried capsule fruits to remove the seeds. This "pepper variant" tastes bitingly spicy, tingling and slightly lemonish. It spices poultry, tofu and fish in the Far Eastern cuisine and harmonizes very well with other spices such as garlic and ginger. However, you should be careful with the dosage.

The well-known cayenne pepper has nothing to do with real pepper: The finely ground powder comes from the chile variety Cayenne (Capsicum annuum). It is one of the strongest spices and is used in almost all Indian, Indonesian and Chinese rice dishes. (Heike Kreutz, aid)