been used as food flavorings, including the
herbs hoja santa and lolot (pp. 409, 410).
Other notable pepper relatives include the
following:
Long pepper (Piper longum). This native
of India was probably the first pungent
spice after mustard to be appreciated in
Europe — the Greeks and Romans
preferred it to black pepper — and it
gave us our word pepper via its Sanskrit
name pippali (black pepper is marichi).
Long pepper is so called because it is the
entire flower spike with tiny fruits
embedded in its surface. It has a
somewhat more pungent taste (due to a
larger supply of piperine), and a woody
aroma. Today it’s mainly used in
vegetable pickles, though it’s also found
in some North African spice mixtures.
Another plant called long pepper is Piper
retrofractum, a native of Java and still
used in Indonesia and Malaysia. It is said