Pepper and Spice

Salt and pepper have graced and saved our dinner tables for millennium. Needing no introduction, as it simply falls under the heading of ‘seasonings’, salt and pepper are considered the pillars that support the flavour of our food. Salt is a powerful flavour enhancer, which makes it an obvious choice to grace our tables, but why has pepper had such staying power and how is it aligning with current consumer interests?

Consumers are loving everything hot and the trend is evolving far beyond just reaching for the obvious - chilli. Different sources of heat are being used and layered together to create new taste sensations, delivering on excitement and complexity in dishes. Pepper as a source of heat is often under appreciated, but as sensory boundaries blur, pepper is appearing front and centre in all sorts of things from beverages to ice-cream. The piperine in pepper is the compound responsible for delivery on that warming heat that accompanies pepper, binding to your taste receptors to signal heat to the brain. Different colour peppers carry different levels of heat (with white often the ‘spicier’ of the two), and different cut sizes lending themselves to different applications, whether looking for visual inclusions or not.

Whilst pepper has dominated the table, there are spices that are arguably dominating the spice pantry as well. As fusion cooking develops into new wave third culture cuisine, and we solidify the globalisation of cuisine, trusted spice rack heroes are appearing as cupboard musts for adding flavour and authenticity to dishes.

Seed spices remain heavy hitters for flavour, with cumin and coriander acting both as fundamentals in sauces and stews, but also a flourishing touch in sprinkles, toppers and snacks (thank you to the Ottolenghi brand for championing this one). Likewise, spices like turmeric and ginger have well and truly established themselves on shelf and in the pantry, owing to their myriads of health benefits.

Whilst there are constantly new ingredients emerging and in vogue, it is the tried and tested favourites that are showing their staying power and popularity with consumers and industry professionals.