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.
SEED STORIES TOLD IN THIS EPISODE:
MORE INFO FROM THIS EPISODE:
Xavier Brown, January 2020
Denzel Mitchell, January 2020
Dr. William Woys Weaver, August 2019
Michael Twitty, April 2019
ABOUT:
Seeds And Their People is a radio show where we feature seed stories told by the people who truly love them. Hosted by Owen Taylor of Truelove Seeds and Chris Bolden-Newsome of Sankofa Community Farm at Bartram’s Garden.
trueloveseeds.com/blogs/satpradio
FIND OWEN HERE:
Truelove Seeds
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FIND CHRIS HERE:
Sankofa Community Farm at Bartram’s Garden
THANKS TO:
Ep. 10: Chris Keeve: Seed Keeper, Chaotic Gardener, and Cooperative Geographer
Ep. 9: Anan Jardali Zahr’s Palestinian Kitchen
Ep. 8: Lettuce Amongst the Stars: Frank Morton of Wild Garden Seed
Ep. 7: Karen Farmers from Burma
Ep 5: Rau Đay, Lalo, Saluyot, Ewedu, Molokhia
Ep. 4: Rufus and Demalda Newsome and Newsome Community Farms, Greenville, MS
Ep. 3: Ira Wallace and Southern Exposure Seed Exchange
Ep. 2: Kristyn Leach and Namu Farm
Ep. 1: Seeds And Their People - Meet Chris and Owen
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