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Hello. This is 6 Minute English
from BBC Learning English. I'm Neil.
And I'm Becca.
In this episode, we're discussing
a food seasoning that's so popular
we eat around three quarters
of a million tonnes of it a year.
We're talking about pepper.
Do you add pepper
to your food, Becca?
I do, Neil.
Yes. I think
it's an easy way to add some spice.
Yeah, I love a bit of pepper.
I grind pepper onto everything.
Well... not everything!
But I do like it.
Given its popularity,
it's surprising that most people know
very little about pepper.
Did you know,
for example,
that peppers are the fruit of vines
often growing over ten metres high?
Our ancestors would be surprised
how little we know.
From ancient Greece onwards, pepper was
prized as the black gold of ingredients,
and explorers crossed oceans
in search of it,
discovering new continents
along the way.
In this episode,
we'll get reacquainted with pepper
and learn some useful new words
and phrases too.
And remember, you'll find
a transcript for you to read along
with us as you listen, on
our website, bbclearningenglish.com.
OK. First, I have a question for you,
of course, Becca.
Although it's black pepper
you're most likely to see in shops
and restaurants in the UK,
there are hundreds
of different varieties worldwide.
But what is unusual about Phu Quoc,
a white pepper from Vietnam?
Does it: a) make people cry,
b) taste like parmesan cheese,
or c) cost more than gold?
Hmm. Well, I don't think
it would be as expensive as gold,
and I kind of want it to taste
like parmesan cheese.
OK. Well, we'll find out later
in the programme.
Mathilde Roellinger is the daughter
of Olivier Roellinger,
an award-winning French chef famous
for his use of spices.
While other little girls
of her age were sprinkling sugar
on their breakfast yoghurt,
Mathilde was the only girl
in Paris sprinkling pepper.
Today, Mathilde runs
the Épices Roellinger spice shop
in the Opéra area of the city.
Here, customers can find a huge range
of peppers,
from fruity red Cambodian Kampot pepper
to Borneo's Sarawak black pepper
with its woody aroma.
These peppers have strong,
distinctive tastes,
but curiously they enhance rather
than overpower the flavour
of the food you're eating,
as Mathilde explained to BBC World
Service programme The Food Chain.
It will give a kick and transform it,
but you will still have the savour
of the different ingredients.
It will not disguise
the other ingredients,
but it will push them –
it's a flavour catalyst.
We can say in punctuation,
like it's an exclamation.
It's like an exclamation mark.
Exactly.
Mathilde says
pepper gives food a kick.
To give something
a kick means to provide it
with extra stimulation or excitement.
Pepper also makes
flavours more intense.
Mathilde calls it a catalyst – something
that causes another action to start
or makes it happen more quickly.
In fact, she says pepper is
like an exclamation mark.
Saying something is like
an exclamation mark means it shows
strong emotion or excitement –
the same thing an exclamation mark
does in written punctuation.
Mathilde's spice shop holds pepper
tasting sessions, where she explains
to customers the origin
of her peppers and how they grow,
changing colour as they harden
in the sun.
Reporter John Laurenson attended one
of these tasting sessions
for BBC World Service programme
The Food Chain.
The different colours
of pepper though,
as Mathilde started to say, do not
correspond to the different varieties
but to the maturity of the peppercorns
and what people do to them.
They're green when they're young,
black when they're mature and dried,
red when they're very mature.
Grey pepper is an industrial
creation, not a botanical one.
Ground to a fine powder,
it is, says Mathilde, grey dust.
She's not very keen on that one.
The colour of pepper
is not determined by the variety,
but by its maturity.
A food's maturity describes the stage
when a food is fully grown
and ready to harvest.
For peppers, this is
when they wrinkle and go black.
Often a peppermill is used to grind
pepper – to crush it into powder
by pressing it
between two hard surfaces.
This happens with grey pepper,
an artificially produced pepper mix
which Mathilde is not keen on –
meaning she doesn't like it.
We've learned so much about pepper,
I'll look at it differently the
next time I sprinkle some on my food.
OK. Neil, I think it's time to reveal
the answer to your question.
Yes, I asked you what's unusual about
Phu Quoc, a white pepper from Vietnam.
I answered b) because I want
it to taste like parmesan cheese.
Well, you're lucky because it is in
fact b) it tastes like parmesan cheese.
Well done. OK.
Let's recap the vocabulary we've
learned, starting with the phrase
give something a kick – meaning
to add extra thrill or excitement.
A catalyst causes something to start,
or speeds it up.
If you say something is
like an exclamation mark,
you mean it signifies strong emotion,
surprise or excitement,
just like an exclamation mark does
in writing.
A food's maturity refers to the stage
when it's fully grown
and ready for harvest.
To grind food means to crush it
into powder
by being pressed
between two hard surfaces.
And finally,
if you're keen on something,
you like it and enjoy doing it.
Once again, our six minutes are up,
but remember you can find worksheets,
quizzes and loads more resources
to improve your English on
our website, bbclearningenglish.com.
See you there soon,
but for now it's goodbye.
Goodbye!
Vocabulary
Word 1 of 15seasoning
word
0:13
"salt, pepper or herbs added to food to improve its taste."
More Listening Practice
About this lesson
Discover the fascinating history and health benefits of pepper, one of the world's most popular spices, in this 6 Minute English episode.