Do you like white pepper?

[Jenise]

I recently gave a dinner guest the opportunity to tell me about anything they're allergic to "or would pretend to be in order to ensure it doesn't end up on your plate." Generally, I find out about allergies to certain nuts, lactic intolerances, that kind of thing.

Well this guest surprised me with "White pepper. I hate white pepper."

Not a problem, but it reminded me how often I've heard accomplished chefs from Julia Child on down say they hate white pepper.

I love it!!! Especially in white sauces. Wasn't something I had any experience with until falling in love with Chinese Hot and Sour Soup. I don't use it in everything but do use it just often enough that a jar sits stove-side along with a black pepper grinder and hot red pepper flakes.

Any other fans? And what are your favorite uses?

I'll have to go look carefully. I have a mill just for white pepper but I also recently noticed that I like one of my white peppercorns way more than the other... but I have to look up the origins.

That is interesting. They're very similar to me. Black pepper has a lot more interesting aromatics than white, but still in the same ballpark. Are there people who like mace but not nutmeg? For some reason our family has bad luck with white pepper. I bought an inexpensive glass-jarred pepper grinder and it just sheared off in my hands. It was cool to feel like The Hulk but I did not appreciate the shards in my mashed potatoes. I have been putting off replacing it, so I just have a few corns in the grinding head. Certainly a niche spice, but flecks of black pepper in mashed potatoes especially are unappetizing. doubly so when the potatoes sit and the dark color diffuses into the mash.

I like it and I think it plays particularly well with nutmeg.

I like white pepper. It's a staple in East Asian cooking. I don't recall any Thai or Sichuan dishes that call for black pepper. And I'm with Jenise--IMO it's the heat agent to use in hot-and-sour soup (although the Sichuan version uses chiles).

There are also green peppercorns--the unripe berries of the pepper vine. In Thailand you can get them fresh at the market. I get them in jars, pickled in brine, at the local Thai grocery. They add a soft, warm heat and subtle flavor to curries. I especially like them in Thai jungle curry.

-Paul W.

I do use and like white pepper in certain applications but how the berries are processed makes a difference. I have a nose for mold and peppercorns that are soaked in standing water to remove the shell have an aroma that I can't tolerate. This is not the case when processed in constant flowing water. I might be overly sensitive but a comparison between Penzey's Sarawak and Muntok convinced me. This is one spice that I don't buy from any other merchant.

I do use and like white pepper in certain applications but how the berries are processed makes a difference. I have a nose for mold and peppercorns that are soaked in standing water to remove the shell have an aroma that I can't tolerate. This is not the case when processed in constant flowing water. I might be overly sensitive but a comparison between Penzey's Sarawak and Muntok convinced me. This is one spice that I don't buy from any other merchant.

Those are the two I have. I like the Sarawak (running water process) better.

You asked them if they were allergic to anything and they came back with a totally different subject - what they didn't like the taste of.

I'd have said thank you and used white pepper if I wanted to as they weren't allergic to it (and likely wouldn't have been able to tell if it was in the food or not).

If you'd asked them if there was anything they just didn't like, it would have been different.

You asked them if they were allergic to anything and they came back with a totally different subject - what they didn't like the taste of.

I'd have said thank you and used white pepper if I wanted to as they weren't allergic to it (and likely wouldn't have been able to tell if it was in the food or not).

If you'd asked them if there was anything they just didn't like, it would have been different.

But she did. Read the OP.

Yes, I like white pepper and have it in a white pepper grinder next to a bold black pepper. I use it in white sauces, many times paired with nutmeg. I like it in certain fruit salads, when I want the color of the fruits to be the star. I have used it in omelets when I want a nice mild white cheese flavor to come through instead of pepper. White pasta, white fish, anywhere I want a pungent punch of pepper by not the black flecks.

[Jenise]

I especially like them in Thai jungle curry.

-Paul W.

I'm a pictorial thinker and images often jump into my head unbidden. And so it was when I read you saying "Thai jungle curry" and immediately pictured you (and I don't even know what you look like IRL) in a setting right out of Gilligan's Island in a grass skirt with a giant shark tooth hanging around your neck eating curry out of a coconut shell.

[Jenise]

You asked them if they were allergic to anything and they came back with a totally different subject - what they didn't like the taste of.

I'd have said thank you and used white pepper if I wanted to as they weren't allergic to it (and likely wouldn't have been able to tell if it was in the food or not).

If you'd asked them if there was anything they just didn't like, it would have been different.

But she did. Read the OP.

You're right Jeff, it was an either/or question. Our best friends won't eat raw tomatoes or anything with visible onions in it. My brother has tummy issues and can no longer eat anything too spicy. Another friend won't touch cheese--and I don't know if that's a lactose intolerance not. I'm happy to cook around any dislike, but "white pepper" was definitely not the kind of answer I expected.

[Jenise]

I do use and like white pepper in certain applications but how the berries are processed makes a difference. I have a nose for mold and peppercorns that are soaked in standing water to remove the shell have an aroma that I can't tolerate. This is not the case when processed in constant flowing water. I might be overly sensitive but a comparison between Penzey's Sarawak and Muntok convinced me. This is one spice that I don't buy from any other merchant.

Those are the two I have. I like the Sarawak (running water process) better.

Interesting. I have never EVER had white pepper out of a pepper grinder. I buy/use Penzey's ground exclusively and have no idea what peppercorns go in there. I did notice that my brother just ordered some and his is darker and a bit coarser than the superfine powder I've always received. Wonder what's going on there.

When I use it, it's rarely just a little bit. When I want it, I typically use A LOT. One of my fave comfort foods on the planet is creamed peas and I want so much in there that the dish is hot because of it. It's never a side dish, it's a mono-meal. One big bowl of peas just for me and it's really more like one big bowl of endorphins. When I eat that, it satisfies on many more levels than mere food.

"When I use it, it's rarely just a little bit. When I want it, I typically use A LOT. One of my fave comfort foods on the planet is creamed peas and I want so much in there that the dish is hot because of it. It's never a side dish, it's a mono-meal. One big bowl of peas just for me and it's really more like one big bowl of endorphins. When I eat that, it satisfies on many more levels than mere food."

Interesting, as an adult, I never eat peas anymore unless they are freshly picked from the Farmers Market. However, when I was a kid, my Granpa grew a huge garden and a very large crop of fresh peas. I would sit in the dirt, pick peas, and eat them until I was stuffed. I'd toss the shells to my dog, who gobbled them up with delight. My mom often tried to give me canned peas, ugh. And I never much cared for the frozen either unless they were tossed into a really good soup, but fresh is an entirely different thing. I don't recall ever having creamed peas, but it does sound good.

[Jenise]

Karen, the other essential ingredient for creamed peas is a few squirts of lemon juice. But hey, no frozen peas? Of all the frozen vegetables in the world, they are by far the best and my freezer's never without them. I love them cooked, frozen in the palm of my hand for a snack, in salads and many of the other conventional uses. No canned though, never.

My mom liked green peas from a can. When she opened the kitchen cabinet I would throw my voice, "Ooh, eat us! Pick us up! We want to get out of this can!"

[Jenise]

Strangely my father adored canned peas but would not eat fresh or frozen. That's one of only about three things we ever knew our father to not like--he had a great palate and ate EVERYTHING. So one year moons later when I had them over for Thanksgiving dinner, I served peas as one of the vegetables and made sure Dad was seated next to my right where he would, of course, pass me the huge bowl of peas that were passed to him (we were religious about clockwise passing) so that I could in turn start quoting every lecture we got as kids about not eating this or that while heaping one spoonful after another of those peas on his plate. Revenge is sweet!

There are only two things I can say that I literally hate and will not eat under any circumstances: peas and calves liver! There are things I don’t eat because the sight of them are off-putting in a way that causes me to wretch. Top among them are oyesters and eggs with runny yolks! Just can’t bring myself to do it. YUCK.

'm a pictorial thinker and images often jump into my head unbidden. And so it was when I read you saying "Thai jungle curry" and immediately pictured you (and I don't even know what you look like IRL) in a setting right out of Gilligan's Island in a grass skirt with a giant shark tooth hanging around your neck eating curry out of a coconut shell.

Nah, I don't even wear a sola topi while eating it.

-Paul W.