Spaghetti with Bacon

Aside from salt, black pepper is a popular pantry item, years ago it was used as currency. The majority of savory recipes include some form of black pepper as an ingredient.

Green Bean with Mushroom Saute

Today, black pepper is such a common pantry item. It was once so valuable that it was used as currency. We take it for granted, but the majority of savory recipes include black pepper as an ingredient.

Pork Chops in Onion Gravy

Black pepper is a common pantry item, its hard to believe it was once so valuable that it was used as currency. We take it for granted, but the vast majority of savory recipes include some form of black pepper as an ingredient. 

Loaded Hasselback Potatoes

Black pepper is a common pantry item these days; it might be hard to believe it was once so valuable that it was used as currency. We take it for granted, but the majority of savory recipes include some form of black pepper as an ingredient.

Bacon Deviled Eggs

Black pepper is available whole, crushed or ground into powder.

Beer Battered Fish And Chips

Pepper has been used as a spice in India since prehistoric times. Pepper is native to India and has been known to Indian cooking since at least 2000 BCE. J. Innes Miller notes that while pepper was grown in southern Thailand and in Malaysia, its most important source was India, particularly the Malabar Coast, in what is now the state of Kerala. Peppercorns were a much prized trade good, often referred to as "black gold" and used as a form of commodity money. The term "peppercorn rent" still exists today.

The ancient history of black pepper is often interlinked with (and confused with) that of long pepper, the dried fruit of closely related Piper longum. The Romans knew of both and often referred to either as just "piper". In fact, it was not until the discovery of the New World and of chile peppers that the popularity of long pepper entirely declined. Chile peppers, some of which when dried are similar in shape and taste to long pepper, were easier to grow in a variety of locations more convenient to Europe.

After the Middle Ages, virtually all of the black pepper found in Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa was from India's Malabar region. By the 16th century, due to the Portuguese influence, pepper was also being grown in Java, Sunda, Sumatra, Madagascar, Malaysia, and elsewhere in Southeast Asia, but these areas traded mainly with China, or used the pepper locally. Ports in the Malabar area also served as a stop off point for much of the trade in other spices from farther east in the Indian Ocean.

Black pepper, along with other spices from India and lands farther east, changed the course of world history. It was in some part the preciousness of these spices that led to the Portuguese efforts to find a sea route to India during the age of discovery and consequently to the Portuguese colonial occupation of that country, as well as the European discovery and colonization of the Americas. 

By http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_pepper#History