Questions and Answers - Schwan (Sichuan) Pepper, Timur Pepper, Nepali Pepper

Note from Linda (4/07/06): Until very recently there was a long-standing ban on the importation of this pepper. A couple of years ago the FDA banned the importation of Szechuan (Sichuan) Peppercorns because they were carrying a citrus canker virus. This virus could potentially harm the foliage of citrus crops in the U.S. It was never an issue of harm in human consumption.

Recently the USDA and FDA have lifted the ban, provided the peppercorns are heated to around 160 degrees F. (which kills the canker virus) before importation.

I read your posting with interest. I bought small bags of these peppercorns in Beijing last year. Did not try to import them because I heard of the restriction. Then I discovered a source in the US. Seems that it is legal now if temperature treated. Check out The Spice House in Chicago, Evanston, and Milwaukee. I bought 2 pounds. As far as I can tell, it is identical to that found in China. We love this spice. I once worked for McCormick as a food chemist and had never heard of it, despite the importance of peppercorns to the company culture. - Steve (4/07/06)

Question:
I came across your What's Cooking site looking for haggis in the San Francisco Bay Area. I don't know where you hail from, but there's not much in the way of food ingredients you can't find in the land of Silicon Valley (it's true, unfortunately in some cases). Years ago. Back in the sixties, my Dad had a Spice Island product named "Nepal Pepper." It was wonderful. A robust, deep fiery heat that came close to curing the common cold during my high school years. I especially enjoyed a dash in pepper pot soup.

At a time during the sixties, Spice Island took the product off its list - and will not comment on recent queries about its history or whereabouts. I've looked for the spice all over Europe, the Middle East, India, Singapore and the best sources in America. I've even had visitors to Nepal promise to bring back a bottle or sack. All in failure. Can you help? - John McLaughlin (9/2/01)

Answers:
Following is about I could find out about these peppers:

Nepali pepper - Also called Szechwan Pepper or Timur Pepper can be found in Oriental stores. Timur pepper/Szechwan pepper (pimpinella anisum) is native to the Szechwan province of China. Though it bears some similarity to black peppercorns, they are not actually of the pepper family, rather the dried berry of a tree in the prickly ash family. The Szechwan pepper is one of the few spices important for Tibetan and Bhutani cookery in the Himalayas, since very few spices can be grown there.

Fruits are globose and are encapsulated in a grayish, pimpled purse-like jacket when young but splits into two halves upon maturation of the seed. A mature seed is oval and jet black in color with a highly wrinkled surface, hence often mistaken for a pepper as the English name indicates.

The rural people apply the powder of its seeds on their legs to get rid of leech infestation while crossing a forest in the rainy season. The seed emits a characteristic pungent odor so strong that even the sticky leech loses its foothold! It can be verified by a locally popular maxim, which goes - "Timur in the mouth of a leech is like a hammer on the head of a nail." It
also possesses formidable disinfectant properties and is used largely as a safety measure as well as a flavoring essence during wild mushroom cooking.

The seeds possess several medicinal properties like curing stomach aches and toothaches; but in heavy dosage it may prove toxic. People make tasty curries just by mixing it with a pinch of salt and piece of green chile.

Feedback:
Thanks for your email! It's so nice to get an answer from an unsolicited inquiry.

I use Szechwan pepper frequently. I always remove the pods and stems then lightly dry saute (no oil) the shells at medium heat until a slight whiff of smoke rises above the skillet. Remove from the skillet, dry on a paper towel. The next day, the "crisp" shells can be ground in a pepper grinder. Try the ground Szechwan pepper with salt and granulated garlic on the skin of roasted or barbecued chicken (dry, no sauce). There's a slight hint of mint, lemon and hot. It's probably not very healthy but it make a fabulous crispy chicken skin.

Nepal Pepper, used to be sold under the Spice Islands label. The color was a light red. The fire was a very deep hot. From your email it seems as though the Spice Islands people may have mislabeled the name. Maybe that's why they didn't reply to my email.

If you get an opportunity to try the Szechwan pepper recipe, please let me know what you think. - John

Kelley Homan (2/25/03):
When I read your Questions & Answers - Nepal pepper web page, I just about fell off of my chair. I had embarked on the same quest perhaps four years ago. I sent so many e-mails to companies that had anything to do with peppers that I though the first two paragraphs on the Q&A were from me somehow.

As I read more closely, my queries always included information regarding my grandpa who acquired a taste for Nepal pepper in the mid 1800s. My father was born in 1894. Around 1935 at the age of 5 to 6 years, my father introduced me to the delights of Nepal pepper on all types of egg dishes. The color is true because I still have grandpa's silver pepper shaker. The Spice Islands label was how we bought Nepal pepper through out the 1960s, then it disappeared from existence. In my web search, I was looking for peppercorns but came across a pepper bush that was specifically identified as Nepal pepper.

I am searching for that saved web page and will pass along the information when it is located. Spice Islands, as I recall the story, was purchased by McCormick-Schilling, and the business was moved to Australia. But I wrote letters, sent e-mails to McCormick, and received not one smoke signal from the company. I guess that the purchase of a case of Nepal pepper was beneath the company's marketing threshold.

Question:
I saw your Q&A page with people trying to find Sichuan Pepper. I also have been trying to find it to no avail in San Francisco Asian markets - and generally even get a blank look when I ask about it, as if it had never existed. Finally today I got an answer in an Oakland market when they said the FDA had banned its import into the U.S. They didn't know why but my Google search turned up the following info.

"Import of sichuan pepper to the USA is currently banned in order to prevent spread of the citrus canker disease. Citrus canker is caused by a bacterium (Xanthomonas axonopodis pv. citri) that infects several members of family Rutaceae, particularily citrus fruits; being highly contagious and impossible to cure, citrus canker now poses a severe threat to the orange industry in Florida. For fear of importing new strains of the pathogen, the Food & Drug Administration (FDA) has set a general ban on several herbal products, including Chinese sichuan pepper."

So much for real effect in Szechwan cooking dishes. Some web sites suggest Japanese water pepper leaves as a similar taste. There is an Australian pepper called Tasmanian Pepper. But the article goes on to say:

Tasmanian pepper is known and available in Australia only, where it plays an increasing rôle in local cookery. It is used for typical Australian food, e.g. emu hamburger or kangaroo steaks; it is common to marinate meat with a mixture of crushed Tasmanian pepper berries and vegetable oil before grilling or frying. Stews with longer cooking period, on the other hand, are seasoned with the ground grains before serving, because long simmering destroys the taste of this spice.

What is called bush food in Australia is a new culinary style that makes use of tasty indigenous plants: lemon myrtle, acacia seeds ("wattleseed"), an Australian relative of tomato ("bush tomato", Solanum centrale) and local herbs lend a typical Australian touch to the food. Bush food is inspired both by traditional cookery of Australian farmers and by cooking procedures used by Native Australians (Aboriginals). It is also significantly influenced by Italian cooking; pasta flavoured with Tasmanian pepper or pesto made with wattle seeds instead of pine nuts are typical bush food creations. On the other side, bush food is often much more spicy than each of aboriginal, farmer and Italian foods; there is probably some indirect influence of the many Asian immigrants that have moved to Australia in the past decades and that have established a general tolerance to well-spiced food."

I greatly appreciated finding your site with its information. - Richard (7/20/03)

Answer:

Thank you for forwarding the above information to me. I found it very informative and interesting. Since Sichuan peppers can't seem to be found in the U.S. anymore, just substitute regular black peppercorns for them in your recipes. Come back and visit again.

Feedback:
Thanks for the tip. I also now wonder, since Sichuan pepper is one of the "five spices" in five-spice powder, if they are somehow still getting around the restriction by premixing it over in China (since the fear seems to be something which might be carried on the peppercorns themselves and perhaps if it is already processed into something else it may be exempt). I can't imagine that we are now getting "four-spice" powder. Just a ponder. - Richard