Cubeb pepper (Piper cubeba L.)
Used plant part
Cubeb peppercorns
Fruit. The stalked berries are a little bit larger than pepper corns, having a furrowed surface. Most berries are hollow. They are sold whole and should be crushed or ground before usage.
Plant family
Piperaceae (pepper family).
Sensoric quality
Pungent and bitter with a strong terpene aroma.
Main constituents
The dried fruits contain up to 10% essential oil (mostly composed of sabinene, carene and 1,4-cineol; furthermore, the sesquiterpenes cadinene and cadinol have been reported). The pungency is caused by the lignane cubebin and several related compounds: hinokinin, clusin, dihydroclusin, dihydrocubebin and more. (Phytochemistry, 24, 329, 1985).
To my knowledge, the source of the bitter taste has not yet been identified.
In the fresh leaves of P. guineense, mostly phenylpropanoids (dillapiole, furthermore myristicin, elemicin) and minor amounts of terpenes (alpha-phellandrene) wer found. (Phytochemistry, 49, 2019, 1998).
Origin
Ashanti pepper
Indonesia. Most cubeb pepper is today harvested in Java and other Indonesian islands, but also from some African countries (Sierra Leone, Congo), cubeb pepper is exported.
The so-called "false cubeb pepper" stems from the Central African species Piper guinese and P. clusii. Their fruits, also known as "ashanti pepper", indeed strongly resemble cubeb berries, but are prolate-elliptically shaped, smaller, more smooth in surface and display a somewhat reddish colour. Their fruit stalk ("tail") is, contrasting cubeb pepper, not straight but curved. Ashanti pepper tastes similar to cubeb pepper, but more fresh and less bitter.
Etymology
Arabic kabaabah is of uncertain origin.
In Europe, the bitter and hot cubebs have been a popular substitute for black pepper in the 16.th and 17.th century, but have fallen much in disfavour since then. Their fate resembles negro pepper, which is a spice of similar flavour and today largely unavailable on the European market. The main reason for both spices' sudden disappearance is probably their pronounced bitterness, which made them inferior to black pepper as soon as the latter got impoted at reasonable price. Today, cubebs are mostly used in some North Afracan states, most notably in Tunisia and Morocco. See fenugreek for more information on bitter and sichuan pepper for more information on pungent spices.
In Morocco, spice mixtures tend to be rather complex, or, as some say, they reach baroque dimensions in their list of ingredients. Ras el hanout is the name of a spice mixture with varying number of components that can also contain aphrodisiacs (e.g., the famous "Spanish flies" - caveat emptor!) or cannabis. Less dangerous components might be cubeb pepper, long pepper, black pepper, grains of paradise, chiles, chaste tree berries, nutmeg, cinnamon, cloves, cardamom and even rose flowers. Obviously, there are only a few common spices left out! The name ras el hanout literally means "head of the shop" and implies that only one person in the store is considered able to compose the mixture according to the need (and the financial potency) of the customer. As may be guessed, the character of this mixtures is not fixed but varies widely, and general remarks about its culinary merits are difficult.
Cubeb pepper is sometimes hard to get, since it is not much in demand in our days. As a further complication, I have seen cubeb pepper several times being confused with the so-called "cinnamon buds" or "cassia buds", dried unripe fruits of the cinnamon or cassia trees, respectively.
