Pepper

At their heyday in global trade—between the 15th and 17th centuries—peppercorns were the bitcoin of their time. They were the oddest thing to be so outrageously expensive just because someone said so.

When Alaric, the king of the Visigoths, laid sack to Rome in 410, he exacted a tribute from the Roman Senate of 5,000 pounds of gold, 30,000 pounds of silver—and 3,000 pounds of pepper, at that time the dearest of spices. The Visigoths didn’t need that much pepper—for anything—except as a way to ensure Rome never again got uppity.

And so it went for centuries with peppercorns. These wee balls were mighty scepters. In 1550 Antwerp, their price was the barometer for business in all of Europe. They themselves made splendid business. In the late 16th century, 100 pounds of pepper cost 3 ducats out of port in Kolkata, 25 ducats wholesale in Lisbon, and 80 ducats retail in Venice. (One 16th-century gold ducat is worth about $1,200 in 2026 money.)

Peppercorns were the reason Christopher Columbus set off in a novel direction in search of them. He was after “India,” after all, pepper’s birthplace and perennial major source. From the 16th century on, pepper controlled the trade in spices and, hence, European colonization and imperialism throughout the globe. After Columbus, peppercorns shaped the world’s political order, a world we yet live in today.

A look around any everyday American diner will illustrate that pepper plays no exalted role for us. Except that no kitchen in the Western world is without it, and few are the meals we eat that do not include it. We need our peppercorns, just as we need their ever-present sibling, salt.

More on Pepper on this site.

And a great recipe from Chef Jamey Fader for Roast Prime Rib, which uses a nice amount of ground black peppercorns for flavor.