If you buy ground peppercorns you should always go for fresh ground because they taste completely different imo.
In bangladeshi cooking I notice that they use whole black peppercorns in their curry and discard it at the end. However would using it like this be equivalent to cooking with non fresh peppercorns as above?
My thinking is that if the taste between fresh ground and non fresh ground is so different, then cooking a whole peppercorn is like non fresh because the surface has been exposed to air for a long time.
Is my thinking correct or should cooking whole be considered cooking fresh, if so in what way?