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:
Fish Pepper
Buena Mulata Pepper

 
MORE INFO FROM THIS EPISODE:
Xavier Brown, January 2020
Soilful City on Instagram: @soilful
Soilful City: soilfulcitydc.wordpress.com
Soilful City at Truelove Seeds

 
Denzel Mitchell, January 2020
Instagram: @fatherof5fivefifths
Denzell Mitchell at Farm Alliance Baltimore
futureharvestcasa.org/denzel-mitchell
"Introducing Denzel Mitchell of Five Seeds Farm in Baltimore”- Afroculinaria Blog by Michael Twitty, 2012

 
Dr. William Woys Weaver, August 2019
Instagram: @roughwoodseeds, @williamwoysweaver
Roughwood Seed Collection: www.roughwoodtable.org
Signed copies of Heirloom Vegetable Gardening

 
Michael Twitty, April 2019
Instagram: @thecookinggene
Buy The Cooking Gene Book: Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble
Michael W. Twitty Facebook Page
The Cooking Gene Facebook Page
Michael W. Twitty on Twitter: @koshersoul
www.Afroculinaria.com
Article Owen wrote from this original interview [PDF]

 
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
Tumblr  |  Instagram  |  Twitter
 
FIND CHRIS HERE:
Sankofa Community Farm at Bartram’s Garden
 
THANKS TO:
Xavier Brown
Denzel Mitchell
William Woys Weaver
Michael Twitty
Horace Pippin
Sara Taylor

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