James Knecht, age 10, of Enid, Oklahoma, for his ques  tion:

Where does black pepper home from?

Our grains of black pepper and white pepper could be gathered from the same vine. Its scientific name is Piper nigrum and its original home was a small region on the west coast of India. Nowadays, pepper plantations thrive in other parts of India and also in the moist tropics of Malay and Indonesia. Every year, these regions supply Americans with more than 15,000 tons of pepper, some black and some white.

The leafy pepper vine is planted to twine around a post as it grows. It must be trimmed, weeded and fertilized. In three years, it begins to bear clusters of little berries. Some of them are picked before they become ripe and dried until they turn blacks These pepper berries are ground to make black pepper. Other berries are left to ripen on the vine. They are harvested and their outer skins are peeled away. When ground, the ripened berries become white pepper.