The Black Pepper Era

In the old days, black peppers are commonly referred to as a pinch of spice in any given food cooked on the stove. The humble peppercorns are merely garnishes then.

Nowadays, black peppers seem to be a booming trend, especially amongst youngsters. Black peppers are no longer pinches of spice, nor are they garnishes. But, they have become their own customized flavour.

BBQ sauces and marinades have been replaced with black pepper flavoured sauce and marinade.

Just go to any food outlets you commonly visited within the last five to ten years, and you'll see that they have added a new black pepper-based cuisine; Black Pepper Chicken Rice, Chicken Chop with Black Pepper Gravy, Black Pepper Sizzling Hot Plate Noodle...not to forget the humble tapioca chip (kerepek ubi), once lightly seasoned with salt, now dunked in black pepper prior to baking.

I commonly watch cooking shows on television. When they make roast chicken for instance, they only sprinkle pepper lightly onto the chicken. When I bought a roasted chicken at a local supermarket recently, the chicken looked as if it was dunked into pepper before being roasted. My, the appetite of people nowadays.

It so happened that when this trend was at its early booming stage, I was in final semester at the Shah Alam campus, roughly 6 months before migrating to the northern Bukit Mertajam campus.

On one occassion, I returned home late from night class. Before going up to my apartment, I had a dinner of chicken rice meat at the restaurant across the block. I was friends with the girl who tended the chicken rice section. She usually let me have the remaining chicken meats for half price.

Whilst having my dinner, a chap and his sweetheart came into the shop and sat at a table that was within hearing and visual distance. From the looks of the chap; a packet of cigarette in one hand, wrinkled jeans, uncombed hair, heavy regional dialect I could tell that he is a student of UiTM.

When he placed his order, he spoke in his heavy regional dialect. But then, when asked for the gravy flavour of his dish, the attendant had some difficulties catching the phrase "Black Pepper" that was pronounced in regional dialect.

It was then that it struck me; black pepper has become an elite product, one that is accessible to all levels of society. People would go to great lengths to uphold the glory of the black pepper, even to the extent of learning to pronounce it properly, despite the fact that most of them are known for their retaliation of using the English language.

Yesterday, bird's eye chilli/thai chilli (cili padi/cabai burung) replaced the common chilli. Today, black pepper replaced all common sauces. Tomorrow...who knows?