I got to thinking , after reading a thread today where people were talking about Vanilla and how they pick up “pepper notes” in many vanillas, what the heck is pepper?
And what the heck is vanilla?
Let’s do this…
Botanists describe a fruit as the part of the plant that contains the seeds. That’s why weirdly, tomatoes are considered a fruit. Cucumbers and avocados too.
We typically think of the fruit that share the host plant with sugars, as fruit. But there are savory fruits.
How does vanilla grow?
The Vanilla plant is a vine, and from that vine hangs the vanilla bean. After being picked it dries and becomes leathery, oily, and a bit wrinkly. Cut that bean in half carefully, and inside you find two things; seeds, and a gooey stuff not unlike the fruit from a date or fig. Should we call vanilla a fruit? Let’s not get off track.
How does pepper grow?
The pepper plant is a vine, and from that vine hangs long clusters of seeds, peppercorns. Once dried, they become those hard round balls we put in our pepper grinders. It’s seeds!
“Go forth and be fruitful”, not sure if that’s Shakespeare or the bible, but again, let’s not get off track.
To be “fruitful” is to spread your seed, that’s how stuff gets to make more stuff.
Taste vanilla bean before it gets turned into a candle or a cookie, it’s fairly nasty stuff. Smells great, but the “flavor”, pretty bitter and acerbic. Much like cinnamon and cocoa, it isn’t much until you start adding sweeteners and creams to it.
3Seeds in food besides vanilla and pepper?
*Caraway, the seed associated with Rye bread.
*Fennel, a licorice-like seed found in Italian sausage and lots of Indian dishes.
*Cumin, the seed that smells like armpit but tastes wonderful in tacos and chili.
*Coriander, from the cilantro plant, sweet and tangy.
*Mustard, the faith seed, better used ground up with vinegar than in denying science.
*poppy, great on bagels and muffins or in a syringe as heroin, a friend repellant.
You get the idea. But notice that all these seeds, if you put them in your mouth and chew, might have flavor variations one from another, but all have a flavor or essence that might be considered “peppery”.
So next time you taste Vanilla and there’s notes that remind you of pepper, remember, it sort of is. 
