Caper (Capparis spinosa L.)

The beauty of caper flowers is as fragile and short-lived as that of poppy flowers: The delicate, cream-white petals and lively purple stamina persis only a few hours. Moreover, the flowers are rarely seen in caper gardens as the caper bud must be harvested before it opens. Nevertheless, the flowers of wild caper bushes are a common sight in all countries surrounding the Mediterranean sea, extending even to the Sahara in North Africa and the dry regions of Central Asia, where the plant is thought to have originated.

Capers are essential for several Mediterranean cuisines and are mostly associated with Italian (and Cypriotic) foods. They are mostly applied to tomato or wine sauces and fit well to poultry and fish. Furthermore, they are popular with cold meat and frequently used for Italian pizza (see oregano). Capers harmonize with most other Mediterranean spices (basil, oregano and garlic, just to name a few) and are frequently combined with pickled olives.

The cuisines of Central and Norther Europe with their genaral preference for lightly flavoured i foods have come to use capers, too; the main applications are cold dishes (fish salads, minced meat and savoury vegetable salads). Many sauces owe their special character to the addition of a few chopped capers; heating such sauces must, though, be avoided, because capers' aroma gets quickly destroyed by higher temperature. It is best to add capers as late as possible to the sauce, when it is but luke-warm; they go well with chervil and tarragon.

Used plant part
Buds, to be harvested in the morning time immediately before flowering; they are never dried but pickled in oil, brine or vinegar. Smaller buds (nonpareilles and surfines, both with less than one centimeter diameter) are considered more valuable than the larger capucines and Gruesas (more than 1.3 cm diameter). Pickled caper fruits (French cornichon de câpres, in English also known as caper berries) are more rarely traded. Their flavour is very intensive.

Plant family
Capparidaceae (caper family); closely related to the cabbage family.

Sensoric quality
The fragrance is spicy and a little bit sour (because of the pickling), the taste is slightly tart and pungent. Caper berries have a stronger, more dominant but otherwise similar flavour.

Main constituents
Obviously, capers consist mainly of water (about 85%). The dry matter contains, besides bitter flavonoid glycosides, a mustard oil glycoside named glucocapparin (methyl glucosinolate), whence by enzymatical reaction the pungent principle of capers, methyl isothiocyanate, is liberated. Thus, cappers resemble several spices of the cabbage family (cress, black and white mustard, wasabi and horseradish), all of which contain mustard oil glycosides.

Of all mustard oils, methyl isothiocyanate is the most volatile and most susceptible to hydrolysis (degradation by water), especially at elevated temperature.

Among the flavonoids, rutin (named after its occurence in rue) is the most important. The white spots often seen covering the surface of pickled capers are said to by rutin which crystallized during the pickling procedure. Although some older sources (Stobart) claim capric acid an important constituent of cappers, newer work does not mention this compound (whose name is, by the way, not related to English caper, but derives from Latin capra “goat” because its strong smell). The pungency of unripe caper berries is due to aliphatic isothiocyanates (methyl, isopropyl and sec-butyl); furthermore, a pyridine alkaloid stachydrine was found.

Origin
Capers can today be found growing wild all over Mediterranean, and are frequently cultivated (e.g., in France, Spain, Italy and Algeria; furthermore, Iran, Cyprus and Greece produce significant amounts); their origin is, though, supposed in the dry areas of Western or Central Asia. Turkey is one of the main exporters of Capers.

Product List
Lilliput
Non Pareilles
Surfines
Capucines
Capotes
Fines