Numbing Aesthetics: Taste and Tempers of Peppercorn, Mountain Pepper, Sansho
January 2020
in “
Gastronomica The Journal of Food and Culture
”
TLDR Peppercorn's rich cultural and historical significance was reduced to just a flavor by 20th-century chemists.
The article examined the cultural history of peppercorn, also known as mountain pepper or sanshō, focusing on its characterization as a "numbing spice" in East Asian traditions. Historically, peppercorn was valued for its vivid colors and cosmological associations, believed to promote health and youth. It was used medicinally for conditions like hair loss and toothaches, with its effectiveness linked to its appearance. The spice also served as a social metaphor in literature. However, in the 20th century, efforts by Tokyo-based chemists to distill its numbing properties into a single flavor component reduced its rich historical and cultural significance, transforming it into a mere flavor category and stripping away its broader cosmological meanings.
