Kitchen Pepper

Last fall I decided to make some kitchen pepper.   What is that, I hear you say?  Kitchen pepper is a basic seasoning mix that seems to have been fairly popular in the nineteenth century, based on its inclusion in historic cookbooks.  I encountered the concept of Kitchen Pepper a number of years ago when I read my first reproduction cookbook, The Kentucky Housewife (1839).  Unlike its designation as a "pepper," the actual product is a mix.

I tucked it away in the back of my mind, where it stayed as I started learning how to cook historic recipes.  In the meantime, I made walnut catsup, lemon catsup, and mushroom catsup.  The idea of other seasonings intrigued me.  Plus, I wanted an interesting demonstration for a reenactment.  So, one lovely October weekend, I, with the help of friends, made kitchen pepper.

The Kentucky Housewife

Making the Kitchen Pepper

I started with whole, dried ingredients, including blades of mace, which I found at an Indian grocery.
I chose dried whole ginger root for my ginger source and dried red pepper. I weighed all the spices out at home on my kitchen scale.  The ginger and the red pepper seeds would prove troublesome to grind.

Into a mortar and pestle, and time to grind away.   As the weekend progressed, one of my friends volunteered to help with the grinding.  By the end of the weekend, we had a nice powdered mix.

Add caption

Kitchen pepper smells unlike anything I have ever had - you can smell the sweet spices, but they are off set by the various peppers.   I bottled the results up and brought them back home.

And there it sat.  Making kitchen pepper was an interesting intellectual exercise, but - was I willing to trust it on my food?   The idea nagged at me.  Could I explain to people that while I was willing to make it I was too scared to actually use it as a seasoning?


The Kentucky Housewife mentions kitchen pepper is good in meat gravies.  I decided I would sprinkle a bit on the edge of some rib eye steak I was broiling at home.  And the seasoned part was delicious - to our total surprise.


Soooooo - I tried again.  The next time I made steaks, I used the Kitchen Pepper as a rub. It was fabulous.

Next attempt at seasoning modern food - scrambled eggs.  This was great too.

Other Versions

 The recipe for Kitchen Pepper as found in The Kentucky Housewife does not seem to be the standard version.  Most cookbooks, both British and American, had this version:

The Kentucky Housewife's version has much more pepper.  The more common version uses Jamaica pepper (allspice) instead of mace and includes salt.    I'll have to try this one next to see how they differ (other than the salt).