Welcome to the summary page for FabulousFusionFood's Spice guide to Ashanti Pepper along with all the Ashanti Pepper containing recipes presented on this site, with 5 recipes in total.

This is a continuation of an entire series of pages that will, I hope, allow my visitors to better navigate this site. As well as displaying recipes by name, country and region of origin I am now planning a whole series of pages where recipes can be located by meal type and main ingredient. This page gives a listing of all the Cornish recipes added to this site.

These recipes, all contain as a major flavouring.

Ashanti Pepper, (also known as West African Black Pepper, Kale, Guinea Pepper, Sasema, Kukauabe, Uziza Pepper, Soro wisa, Guinea Cubeb, Masoro, False Cubeb Pepper, Benin Pepper) represents the dried fruit of Piper guineense (also known as Piper clusii). This is a member of the genus Piper (pepper) and thus are closely-related to Piper nigrum (Black Pepper), Piper longum (long pepper) and Piper cubeba (Cubeb pepper), to which it is most closely related. Indeed, one of the common names for Piper guineense is 'Fales Cubeb Pepper'. However, unlike cubeb pepper which is large and spherical in shape, Ashanti pepper berries are prolate-elliptically shaped, smaller and smoother than Cubep pepper in appearance and generally bear a reddish tinge. The pepper 'stalks' of Ashanti pepper are also curved whilst those of cubeb pepper are curved.

Like the other members of the pepper family P guineense is a climbing vine that can grow up to 20m in length. They are native to the topical regions of Central and Western Africa and are semi-cultivated in countries such as Nigeria where the leaves (known as uziza) are used as a flavouring for stews. Like the other members of the pepper family the fruit of these vines contain 5–8% piperine, which gives them their 'heat'. They also contain significant proportions (10%) of myristicine, elemicin, safrole and dillapiol.

It is often confused with cubeb pepper, which is grown in the same region of West Africa. However, cubeb pepper berries are larger and the tail is straight. The 'tails' of ashanti peppers are almost always curved.

The flavour of Ashanti pepper is similar to that of cubeb pepper, but they are fresher in flavour and much less bitter. This spice was one of the many used in Europe during the Middle Ages, and it was certainly known in France in the 14^th where it became an important commodity in the spice trading centres of Rouen and Dieppe. These days the ready availability of black pepper has marginalized this spice and it's little known outside of West and Central Africa today. It is, however, one of the possible ingredients in Egyptian Berbere spice mix. The decline in the use of this spice is a shame though, and it's definitely time for this member of the pepper family to make a comeback. The leaves of this pepper plant are also used in Nigerian cookery as a leafy green and are often sold part-dried.