Pepper

Today, for one of the reunion dinner conversation topics, we talked about pepper.

Whenever my mom goes back to Kuching to visit relatives, she would buy back some pepper. Sarawak pepper is one of the best in the world. Those that I bought over in Singapore has a faint peppery smell, whereas those from my hometown is pungent and smells really well with just a few corn.

I learnt about the two normal type of peppers, black and white and how they are produced. My mom warned me against having black pepper as the producers tend to add in some spoilt or bad pepper into the mix as you can’t really spot the different. I beg to differ, thats how stubborn if it comes to something I like.

I also learnt that there is a third and best kind of pepper. Bird pepper. Yes you heard me right. But sadly, its not widely available in Sarawak nowadays as there are less farm lands now.

Bird pepper is normal pepper, but the key ingredient is birds. You see, birds will eat the best of the pepper corns when its still on the tree, but they can’t really process the pepper proper, so the corn is expelled out onto the ground. People will go around the plantation to pick up these expelled pepper and then wash them properly and then use it.

I know it sounds gross, but I don’t mind trying it out. What harm could I get into? now, I just have to find the bird pepper.

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