Black pepper (Piper nigrum) is the dried, unripe fruit of a flowering vine native to India's Malabar Coast, ground or cracked to season food with its sharp, pungent heat and faint fruitiness. Black, white, and green peppercorns all come from the same berries at different stages of ripeness and processing: black pepper is picked underripe and dried whole with the skin on, white pepper has the skin removed after soaking, and green pepper is picked earliest and preserved before full drying. Once valuable enough to be used as currency along ancient spice trade routes, pepper is now grown mainly in Vietnam, Indonesia, Brazil, and India, with Vietnam the largest producer. It's one of the most universal seasonings in cooking, used whole, cracked, or ground in dishes from French and Italian classics to Indian curries.