misc Interesting Podcast Episode About the Fish Pepper

[nune]

I thought you guys would be interested in Episode 6 of the Seeds & Their People podcast by Truelove Seeds. They have an entire episode about the Fish Pepper and its significance to Black cuisine in Baltimore.

It's super cool and I recommend checking it out. Here's a summary:

This episode is all about the Fish Pepper, an extremely flavorful, productive, and decorative variety that makes an excellent hot sauce. The white unripe fruit were used to flavor seafood dishes in the Black catering community of Baltimore in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Horace Pippin, the now-famed painter, shared this variety (and many others) with H. Ralph Weaver in the early 1940s in exchange for bee-sting therapy. Weaver's grandson (William Woys Weaver, who you will hear from in the second half of this episode) found the seeds in a baby food jar in his grandmother's deep freezer a couple decades later, many years after his grandfather's death, and was able to reintroduce them via Seed Savers Exchange.


In this episode, you will hear from Xavier Brown from Soilful City in Washington DC who makes Pippin Sauce from fish peppers grown by black farmers and urban gardeners in the DC and Maryland areas (including Denzel Mitchell, who you will also hear from). Soilful City offers their seeds through Truelove Seeds. You will also hear from Michael Twitty, author of the Cooking Gene. See links to the work of each of the speakers below.

 

[Ratatouille]

Great find and thanks for sharing.

I am growing Fish pepper this year and was already very charmed by its origin and backstory. This podcast episode is going on my to do (to listen) list.

 

[PollenNut]

I thought you guys would be interested in Episode 6 of the Seeds & Their People podcast by Truelove Seeds. They have an entire episode about the Fish Pepper and its significance to Black cuisine in Baltimore.

It's super cool and I recommend checking it out. Here's a summary:

I've grown Fish pepper for several years and it is indeed a beautiful and wonderfully flavored pepper. The fish pepper is steeped in history/legend and with all of that being said it stands on its own without all of that. I have seen a few variations on the fish pepper over the years and it goes without saying to those of us who know that not all fish peppers are the same. I mean that in reference to fruit wall thickness, size, productivity, and even color. My sincere suspicion is that, while some of these traits are quantitative in nature and not inherited in a mendelian fashion, some of the fish peppers we are seeing are out crossed and then allowed to self which brings us some of this variety. Some of what we are seeing are perhaps just renames as well. With some of the vendors they simply call something what it looks like if they lose a label. Selections matter....

For me personally, I do not grow Fish peppers anymore, but I do have several different jalapeno, poblano, and poblano/jalapeno types with fish pepper genetics. My focus is more on flavor and bringing in the flavors of the poblano and jalapeno while also trying to focus on keeping some of the utility of the original jalapeno and poblano phenotypes.

 

[nune]

I've grown Fish pepper for several years and it is indeed a beautiful and wonderfully flavored pepper. The fish pepper is steeped in history/legend and with all of that being said it stands on its own without all of that. I have seen a few variations on the fish pepper over the years and it goes without saying to those of us who know that not all fish peppers are the same. I mean that in reference to fruit wall thickness, size, productivity, and even color. My sincere suspicion is that, while some of these traits are quantitative in nature and not inherited in a mendelian fashion, some of the fish peppers we are seeing are out crossed and then allowed to self which brings us some of this variety. Some of what we are seeing are perhaps just renames as well. With some of the vendors they simply call something what it looks like if they lose a label. Selections matter....

For me personally, I do not grow Fish peppers anymore, but I do have several different jalapeno, poblano, and poblano/jalapeno types with fish pepper genetics. My focus is more on flavor and bringing in the flavors of the poblano and jalapeno while also trying to focus on keeping some of the utility of the original jalapeno and poblano phenotypes.

I figured that the fish pepper's genetics were kinda bastardized over the years, so I agree with you. Adding fish pepper genetics to different peppers is quite cool!

 

[PollenNut]

I figured that the fish pepper's genetics were kinda bastardized over the years, so I agree with you. Adding fish pepper genetics to different peppers is quite cool!

If you sincerely like Fish pepper genetics being added into Jalapeno, Poblano, jalapeno/poblano, etc.... I suggest you check out some more of my posts here where I offer free seed up for a SASE and some exclusives for those that can follow some very simple rules.