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AI6YR Ben

Hmm, interesting story about a variety of hot pepper revived, thanks to someone's grandfather, seeds in the bottom of a freezer, and treating arthritis with beestings. Also connected with slavery and Haiti.🤔

BBC: The US pepper that was nearly lost

bbc.com/travel/article/2024021

The fish pepper (named for its common use in seafood dishes) is popular today, but it nearly disappeared altogether: that it still exists is thanks to William Woys Weaver, a Maryland author and ethnographer. In 1995, Weaver discovered a jar of seeds in the bottom of a freezer that belonged to his grandfather, H Ralph Weaver. Back in the 1940s, African American folk artist Horace Pippin gifted the fish pepper seeds to H Ralph Weaver after getting treated by him for arthritis using honeybee stings from a hive belonging to the family.
ALT
Feb 23, 2025, 23:13 · · · Web · 51 · 57
Steve Wart

@ai6yr wow very similar story to the guy who surreptitiously absconded with a bunch of rare fever tree plants from Peru, got turned away from Kew Gardens when he showed up with them, and somehow managed to ensure that we all have G&T to make it through the hot, hot summers, over 100 years later

cbc.ca/listen/cbc-podcasts/103

CBC ListenThe Fever Tree Hunt | Stuff The British Stole | CBC Podcasts | CBC ListenMost heists target gold, jewels or cash. This one targeted illegal seeds. As the British established their sprawling empire across the subcontinent and beyond, they encountered a formidable adversary - malaria. There was a cure - the bark of the Andean cinchona tree. The only problem? The Dutch and the French were also looking to corner the market in cinchona. And the trees themselves were under threat. Grab a gin and tonic and come with us to hear how a botanical empire took off - and gave birth to a quintessential cocktail. This podcast is a co-production of ABC Australia and CBC Podcasts.
Steve Wart

@ai6yr what is it how these Brits were always around when people made bank on stealing cultural treasures?

Wally

@ai6yr You might also enjoy this podcast episode, which has interviews with several of the people mentioned in the article. trueloveseeds.com/blogs/satpra

Truelove SeedsEp. 6: Fish Pepper   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.
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