Caper - History

History

The caper was used in ancient Greece as a carminative. It is represented in archaeological levels in the form of carbonised seeds and rarely as flower buds and fruits from archaic and Classical antiquity contexts. Athenaeus in Deipnosophistae pays a lot of attention to the caper, as do Pliny (NH XIX, XLVIII.163) and Theophrastus.

Etymologically, the caper and its relatives in several European tongues can be traced back to Classical Latin capparis, “caper”, in turn borrowed from the Greek κάππαρις, kápparis, whose origin (as that of the plant) is unknown but is probably Asian. Another theory links kápparis to the name of the island of Cyprus (Κύπρος, Kýpros), where capers grow abundantly.

In Biblical times, the caper berry was apparently supposed to have aphrodisiac properties; the Hebrew word abiyyonah (אֲבִיּוֹנָה) for caperberry is closely linked to the Hebrew root אבה, meaning "desire". The word occurs once in the Bible, in the book of Ecclesiastes, at verse 12:5.

The King James Version translates on the basis of the Hebrew root (and perhaps the metaphorical meaning):

...the grasshopper shall be a burden,
and desire shall fail. (12:5 KJV)

The medieval Jewish commentator Rashi also gives a similar gloss (12:5 JPR). However, ancient translations, including the Septuagint, Vulgate, Peshitta and Aquila, render the word more concretely as κάππαρις, "caper berry". Thus in the words of one modern idiomatic translation (2004),

...the grasshopper loses its spring,
and the caper berry has no effect; (12:5 HCSB)

Of other modern versions, the NIV goes for "desire" (12:5 NIV), while the NASB has "caper-berry" (12:5 NASB), as did the 1917 Jewish Publication Society version (12:5 JPS).

The berries (abiyyonot) were eaten, as appears from their liability to tithes and to the restrictions of the 'Orlah. They are carefully distinguished in the Mishnah and the Talmud from the shoots, temarot, and the floral envelopes, ḳapperisin; and declared to be the fruit of the ẓalef or caper plant. But the caper of present-day commerce, the flower bud, which is now eaten pickled, is not mentioned in the Talmud at all.

Talmud Bavli, Gemara Berachot, page 36 A&B, discusses the eating of caper husks versus caper berries, both inside the land of Israel, outside the land of Israel, and in Syria.