The pepper chase

Sourcing Australian grown pepper is still simmering away on the back burner of my mind.  I have looked on line but as the words I use in the search engine define the result I get on the screen and it might be that I am not using exactly the right words to find the right results.  

What I did find today on the display shelves of the local library, was a wonderful book, Pepper by Christine McFadden.   

In this book there are chapters on the history of pepper, the pepper trade, another on the varieties of pepper and their origins and there are eleven chapters of recipes where pepper is always one of the ingredients.  The usual salads, soup, fish, poultry, meat and vegetable recipes are there together with the not-so-usual recipes which include pepper as an ingredient in drinks, desserts, cakes and biscuits. 

As intriguing as all the above might sound, I was on the lookout for any hint of the availability of Australian black pepper.  Looking in the index under A for Australia netted a zero result.  And then on pages 58 & 59 under the heading the great pepper family (there are 11 species listed here) I finally found an Australian related pepper.  Tasmannnia lanceolata is the common name for mountain pepper or Tasmanian pepper.   The description box informs me the leaves and berries can be used fresh or dried; the leaves have a lemony taste but care is needed as the flavour, although sweet at first, intensifies and becomes pungent and numbing.

 I will look for Tasmanian pepper berries at a later date, but it is not what I am looking for right at this moment. I want to find  Australian grown black peppercorns.   

At the very back of the book I find two possible sources here in Australia - Herbie's Spices and Vic Cherikoff Food Services. I put aside this brilliant book, full of pepper facts and figures, fantastic photographs and appealing recipes and turn to search the Internet. In a brief search I find one online source for Australian grown peppercorns and as might be expected cost is a significant factor here.  

Reluctantly I return Australian produced peppercorns to the back burner.