When you think of pepper you may either think of salt's companion or possibly a colorful, smooth (and flavorful) vegetable. As we discussed the likes and dislikes of pepper (the spice) over Sunday dinner today, we realized that no one REALLY knew where pepper came from. "Peppercorn" came to mind...so maybe it is like a small corn kernel? Someone mentioned that "it looks like a little black bee bee" but no one was 100% sure...
Thanks to modern day technology my sister was able to grab her handy little blackberry and Wikipedia it instantaneously. So here is is, straight from wiki itself:
Black pepper (Piper nigrum) is a flowering vine in the family Piperaceae, cultivated for its fruit, which is usually dried and used as a spice and seasoning. The fruit, known as a peppercorn when dried, is a small drupe approximately 5 millimeters (0.20 in) in diameter, dark red when fully mature, containing a single seed.
So there you go, pepper comes from a fruit, which is dried, and then ground into salt's not-so-better-half.
