Welcome to the Celtnet Spice Guide. As this site has grown and many more recipes have been added it's become evident that a guide to the various herbs available to the cook is necessary. With spices becoming more commonly available and more exotic spices becoming available from all over the world it has become evident that some kind of guide or introduction to spices is necessary. These pages are an attempt at bringing all the various culinary spices together into one place so that you can see what's available and perhaps find something new to use in your own cooking. To use this Spice Guide simply click on the first letter of the herb name above or below. Alternativey why not just browse through the guide. All the spices given here, whether common or rare, can be obtained via your local supermarket (or more often via your local Asian supermarket) or via a specialist spice distributor.

This is the description page for Cubeb Pepper (Piper cubeba) and includes a description as well as an image, if available and a selection of recipes from this site that relates to the herb: Cubeb Pepper.

Cubeb pepper (also known as tailed pepper or Java pepper), Piper cubeba, is a member of the genus Piper that also includes black pepper, long pepper, kava, Japanese pepper and Mexican pepper. As such it is a member of the Piperaceae (pepper) family of flowering plants. Piper cubeba is mostly grown in Java and Sumatra (though there is some production in Sierra Leone and the Congo, Africa) and like the other members of the genus it is a flowering vine whose main habitat is the understory of lowland rainforests. The fruit of this vine are gathered before they are ripe and then they are carefully dried. Commercial cubebs consist of the dried berries, similar in appearance to black pepper, but with stalks attached — the 'tails' of the 'tailed pepper' and furrowed surfaces. They are invariably hollow inside.

The odour of cubebs is described as agreeable and aromatic, if slightly woody in nature, and its taste is generally described as pungent, acrid, slightly bitter and persistent. Indeed, like so many other spices it's the bitter overtones of cubeb pepper that meant it never truly became a competitor for black pepper. Chemically, the pungency of cubeb peppers is chiefly caused by the lignane cubebin, which makes it different in character to black pepper. The chief aromatic components of the essential oil are monoterpenes (sabinene 50%, carene, α-thujene, 1,4-cineol and 1,8-cineol) and sesquiterpenes (copaene, α- and β-cubebene, δ-cadinene, caryophyllene, germacrene, cubebol).

The word cubeb seems to have entered European languages during the middle ages from the Arabic al-kabaabah [‫الكبابة‬ or ‫الكبابه‬], though the origin of the Arabic name for this spice is unknown.

Whilst it never gained any real foothold in the European spice trade (probably due to its noticeable bitter overtones) Cubeb pepper remains a crucial ingredient of authentic Indonesian foods. However, it does seem that Cubeb pepper was known and appreciated during the Medieval period, as the recipe for http://www.celtnet.org.uk/recipes/mediaeval/fetch-recipe.php?rid=medi-sauce-sarcenes">Sauce Sarcenes demonstrates. In Moroccan cuisine, cubeb is used in savory dishes and in pastries like markouts — little diamonds of semolina with honey and dates. Cubeb is sometimes included in the list of ingredients for the famed spice mixture Ras el hanout.

In West Africa, cubeb turns up in dishes like the stews of Benin, where its use is so frequent it is referred to as piment pays, (Country Pepper). In Indonesian cuisine, especially in Indonesian gulés (curries), cubeb is also used amongst other spices.