Mexican Pepperleaf (Piper auritum Kunth)

Fresh leaves. They can grow to sizes of 30 cm and more.

Since dried or fresh leaves are hard to get outside of tropical México, cooks often will need a substitute for Mexican pepper­leaves. The best option is to grow the plant, which turns out rather decorative and surprisingly robust.

Mexican pepper leaf plant

The canonical substitute for pepper leaves that is widely used even in México are avocado leaves, but only Mexican avocado types (Persea drimy­folia) have scented foliage; avocados from other regions are mostly Persea americana with insipid leaves.

Curiously, many Mexican cookbooks targeted to an English audience suggest this substitution and argue with the potential toxicity of pepper leaves. Indeed, their safrole content is rather high and not completely without risk, although Mexicans don’t care much about it. Yet scented avocado leaves contain exactly the same chemical, and thus offer no health advantage: If they are as fragrant as the authentic pepper leaves, then they are as toxic, too.

Shrub of Mexican Pepper

Mexican tarra­gon or even ordinary French tar­ra­gon will work well as substitutes in recipes that use puréed leaves, but will of course fail for recipes that use Mexican pepper-leaves as wrappers for fish, poultry or tamales; in the latter case, Thai basil (horapha type) can be tried, although those leaves are much smaller.

Shrub of Mexican Pepper

Mexican pepper leaf plant

Piperaceae (pepper family)

Aromatic and pleasant, loosely re­minis­cent to anise, nutmeg and black pepper. The flavour is strongest in the young stems and veins, which have additionally a pleasant warming pungency. See also cicely on the topic of anise fragrance.

The essential oil from the leaves (0.2%) is rich in safrole (up to 80%), a substance with pleasant odour. Furthermore, a large number of mono- and sesquiterpenoids have been found.

Twig with flowers

See sassafras a­bout the po­ten­tial health hazards of safrole. Besides in P. auritum, safrole ap­pears in several other neo­tropic pepper species. At least one of them, Piper hispidi­nervium (syn. P. frangua­num), is cur­rently grown in Brazil for extrac­tion of safrole (pimenta longa). Black pepper contains only traces of this toxic substance.

Tropic Mesoamerica (Southern México, Guatemala, Panamá, Northern Colombia).

Twig with flowers

Mexican pepperleaf (hoja santa), plant with flower

See pepper. The species name auritus derives from Latin auris ear and means (long)-eared, referring to the leaves’ cordiate shape.

The (rare) English term eared pepper is open to mis­under­standig, because English ear has two distinct meanings organ for hearing and inflores­cence/infrutes­cence of various plants, particularly cereals. The two are actually chance homonyms and derive from dif­ferent Proto-Indo–European roots: H₂EUS ear (for hearing) (cf. aural), but H₂EḰ sharp, pointed (cf. acute or acid).

Mexican pepperleaf (hoja santa), plant with flower

In the case of Mexican pepper, actually both inter­preta­tions would make sense: The inflores­cence con­forms to the botanical defini­tion of ear (it is compact along one stem), and the leaves blades have two large lobes directed back­wards which is com­monly refer­red to as eared (thus, all heart-shaped leaves are eared). As can be seen from the Latin species epithet auritus, the latter meaning is the intended one (the other meaning of ear would be expressed by spicatus in Latin, from spica ear (of grain), from Proto-Indo–European spei sharp).

I cannot explain the Spanish name hoja santa sacred leaf; maybe this hints at cultic use of this plant in Aztec rituals. The English name root beer plant is motivated by the olfactory similarity to sassafras, which is used to prepare the US softdrink root beer.

Pacific Islands Ecosystems at Risk: Eared Pepper Sorting Piper names (www.plantnames.unimelb.edu.au) Recipe: Mole Verde (groups.yahoo.com) Recipe: Mole Verde con Pollo (The Mole Page, www.ramekins.com) Recipe: Mole Verde de Oaxaca (The Mole Page, www.ramekins.com) Safrole from plants (erowid.org)