Caper Plant: Culinary Uses and Medicinal Importance

Common Name: Caper

Scientific Name: Capparis spinosa, belonging to the Brassicaceae family, order Brassicales, which in turn belongs to the Angiosperms (flowering plants).

Description: The caper plant is a perennial, thorny shrub that grows in the Mediterranean region. It is characterized by its numerous branches, pale green, fleshy, rounded leaves, and beautiful white or pink flowers with prominent purple stamens. It produces pear-shaped fruits (buds and small flower buds) that are eaten pickled.

Culinary Uses: Salted and pickled caper buds are used as an ingredient, appetizer, or spice in Mediterranean cuisine. The unripe fruits of the caper shrub are salted, pickled, and marketed as capers. Fully ripe fruits are not preferred due to their numerous hard seeds. Dark olive-green capers are ready for harvesting. They are picked, then pickled in salt or a salt and vinegar solution and drained. Capers are a distinctive ingredient in Italian cuisine, commonly used in salads, pasta salads, meat dishes, and pasta sauces. They are also used to season chicken piccata (a traditional Italian dish that can be made with either chicken or beef. The piccata recipe includes steak, mushrooms, onions, garlic, labneh, butter, soy sauce, olive oil, pepper, and salt) and anchovy spaghetti. Capers are an ingredient in tartar sauce (made with ¾ cup mayonnaise, ¼ cup sour cream, ¼ cup finely chopped dill pickles, 2 tablespoons chopped and drained capers, 1 small finely chopped shallot, 1 minced garlic clove, 1 tablespoon chopped fresh dill or parsley, 2 teaspoons lemon juice, 1 teaspoon prepared mustard, ¼ teaspoon onion powder, ¼ teaspoon black pepper, ¼ teaspoon hot sauce, and 1 tablespoon finely chopped olives), which is often served with cold-smoked salmon or bacon dishes. The fruit can be pickled and then served as a Greek appetizer. Caper leaves, which are difficult to find outside of Greece or Cyprus, are used especially in salads and fish dishes. They are pickled or boiled and preserved in jars with buds of a plant similar to caper buds in a brine solution. Dried caper leaves are also used as a substitute for rennet in the production of high-quality cheese.

Medical Uses: The unopened flower buds of the caper plant and other above-ground parts are used to treat diabetes, fungal infections, chest congestion, intestinal worms, and a skin disease caused by parasites called leishmaniasis (a disease caused by Leishmania parasites transmitted to humans by sandflies). It is also used as a tonic.

The caper plant can lower blood sugar levels in people with type 2 diabetes who are already taking diabetes medication.