SpiceLines
Global Flavors, Local Tastes
Volume 1, Number 1, Fall 2004
Black Pepper: The King of Spices
One
nibble of a pepper-encrusted claw and my lips began to tingle. A few more
bites and my eyes were watering, my nose streaming, my mouth aflame—but I
could not stop. The incendiary heat of the cracked black pepper paired with
the sweetness of the crabmeat was irresistible. That March night in
Singapore, ten years past, sizzling black pepper crab launched me on a
journey into the heart of darkness—or, at least, into the essence of black
pepper.
Pepper is the universal spice, the one you must master if you are going
to call yourself a cook. In
Food, the world’s wittiest culinary encyclopedia, the celebrated
author Waverly Root observed, “Take pepper into your mouth, and its first
report to your palate is that you are dealing with a spice; only after that
does it reveal to you which spice it is.” So perfectly does pepper typify
the dried berries, bark, seeds and roots that we use to season our food that
it was long ago dubbed the King of Spices. For thousands of years, cooks
around the globe have reached for the shriveled, sun-blacked fruit of the
piper nigrum vine to bring food on the stove roaringly to life. Pepper has
the power to transform, to give our lives, as an old Merovingian text notes,
“a savor more intense.” In so doing, it has become the spice that steered
the course of history. [More]
Bombay Spice: An Interview with Chef Floyd Cardoz
Crabcakes
appear so regularly on New York restaurant menus that you could probably eat
a different rendition—for better or worse—every day of the year. But the
Goan Spiced Maine Crabcake at Tabla, the city’s most intriguing Indian
restaurant, is the one we’d devour anytime: a disk of succulent lump
crabmeat, delicately crisped to a golden brown, it bursts with the zingy
flavors of ginger, coriander, chiles and other spices that enhance yet never
overwhelm the sweetness of the shellfish. Eaten with bites of tart
tamarind chutney, Tabla’s crabcake is thrilling, a bit like a rollercoaster
ride through the flavor spectrum.
Tabla is not actually an Indian restaurant, but rather a wondrous cross
cultural kitchen manned by Floyd Cardoz, whose inventive way with Indian
flavors creates dishes that owe as much to French or American styles of
cooking as to the subcontinent. At 43, Cardoz is a gentle, softspoken man
whose round face radiates kindliness, a rare quality in a chef.
When he talks about India and the spices of his childhood, his eyes begin to
glow. [More]
Spice Kitchen: Recipes
We think you'll enjoy Floyd Cardoz’s Black Pepper Shrimp, Watermelon and Lime Salad. For this and six other recipes featuring the King of Spices, please click here.
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SpiceLines © 2004