What do citrus fruits and certain peppers have in common?

 Did you know that there is something in common between citrus fruits and certain peppers that we find on our plates? This link perfectly explains why certain peppers deliver particular lemon, mandarin or grapefruit fragrances! Before discovering the reason, let's look at the different families of peppers.

Peppers represent a general botanical family: the Piperaceae containing more than 50 genera. Only a few are found in our kitchens while others can have therapeutic uses such as Piper betle, betel nut (not to be confused with the Betel nut, fruit of a palm tree, which is a drug) and others which have no culinary use.

Within this family, we distinguish different genera, the best known of which is Piper nigrum . It is the most common pepper found in different forms: green, white, black or red pepper depending on the degree of maturity and treatment like white pepper which is a black pepper from which the "skin" is removed (the pericarp) Botanically, it is a vine that needs a stake to grow. (Tree or stake planted by man) The bunches of pepper are harvested along this vine.

Depending on the terroir we will find for example Tellichery Pepper (India), Malabar Pepper (India), Sarawak Pepper (Malaysia), Kampot Pepper (Cambodia), Madagascar Pepper, Penja Pepper (Cameroon) Phu Pepper Quoc (Vietnam) etc.

Other genera of  Piperaceae  are a little less known, they represent the tailed peppers. We will find  Piper borbonense like wild voatsiperifery pepper from Madagascar or Piper cubeba (Cubeb pepper native to southeast Asia) Finally, Piper longum is also a genus of the Piperaceae family, sold commercially under the name of long pepper. 

All these peppers are commonly called real peppers and they have nothing to do with citrus fruits.

With the recent craze for peppers, we are discovering new peppers in our stores such as Timut pepper, Sichuan pepper , Cimes pepper , Sansho pepper , etc. These do not represent everything makes peppers. They have the shape of a burst berry, separating into small lobes. To taste, these berries have a spiciness reminiscent of pepper with a clear citrus note. These citrus aromas vary across a whole range, including grapefruit, citron, lemon, lemongrass and even tangerine! This variation is due to the variety of the plant and the region in which it grows.

Otherwise we look from a botanical point of view, it is a bushy tree 3 to 5m high which will give berries which strangely resemble tiny citrus fruits. The reason is quite simple:

All these peppers belong to the Zanthoxylum genus which itself belongs to the large Rutaceae family . And Rutaceae are simply the citrus family!

Sometimes called “false pepper”, the majority of these peppers that you will find will remind you of citrus fruits because they are simply botanically related.