what is pepper a bean or spice?

Answer 1

Black pepper is the seed of a tree native to India -- scientific name piper nigrum. It's a distant relative of the fig tree.

Red peppers, bell peppers, jalapeno peppers, chiles, and the like are actually a type of berry -- that is, they consist of a fruit that surrounds a cluster of seeds.

The scientific name for the pepper or chile plant is capsicum -- that's the genus. (They are distant relatives of potatoes and tomatoes.) There are a number of different species of chile pepper, but nearly all the peppers you see in stores and restaurants come from one species, capsicum annuum. Other species you might see are capsicum frutescens (the pepper used in Tabasco sauce) and capsicum chinense (the Habanero chile).

And believe it or not, the jalapeno and the Bell pepper are the same species (capsicum annuum) -- in the same way that the Great Dane and the chihuahua are the same species, but VERY different.

Red pepper -- that is, powdered red pepper used to make food taste hot -- is made by drying red peppers and then crushing them to a powder.

And one last word -- the difference between red and green peppers is that the red ones are ripe. (Or for yellow, orange and purple peppers, they are the ripe versions of green peppers of the same type.) So for example a red Bell pepper is just a green Bell pepper that's been left on the plant to ripen. Peppers are therefore one of the few fruits that are eaten when they're unripe as well as when they're ripe.

Answer 2

Neither, it's a seed. Beans are seeds too, but the plant fixes nitrogen in the soil like peas, lentils, and other legumes. Nutmeg is a seed, mustard, vanilla, caraway, poppy, sesame, are all seeds.

It's also a spice. Spice is not a botanical term. Therefore you are asking about apples and oranges.

Answer 3

I would add some red pepper flakes, they will spice up the soup without being too overbearing and ruining the flavor of the beans :).

Answer 4

It is a spice; a seed pod.
Beans are seeds themselves.

Answer 5

pepper