Literal translation
to date from the year of pepper
Meaning
to date back a very long time
Explanation
This phrase describes something so old that nobody remembers when it began. The image rests on 'the year of pepper', a fictitious and vague year that plays the same role Provençal humor gives to 'the year forty' or the Greek calends in French: a distant, deliberately imprecise point in time, with no real date attached. Pepper, a costly spice once imported from far away, lends the phrase a hint of remote exoticism. It is used lightly, often to poke fun at an outdated object, an old-fashioned custom, or a quarrel so old nobody recalls how it started. The register is familiar and common in everyday speech, with no scholarly overtone. The verb 'data' is conjugated normally for the subject and tense required, while 'de l'an pèbre' stays fixed as the phrase's invariable tail.