Our Heritage Ingredient: Fish Pepper

We’re such voracious advocates of our foodway’s culinary heritage that we’re growing heritage ingredients. Here’s one of the many heritage ingredients that we’re cultivating this year.

Fish Peppers

The Fish pepper is a small chili pepper with deep roots in Chesapeake, African-American history. It may be native to the Caribbean and made its way to our region in the late 19th century through Haitian merchants.

It was called “fish pepper” because it’s a great seafood seasoning.

Fish pepper pods start as creamy white with green streaks and a mild heat. As they mature, they morph into bold, bright colors and their heat intensifies.

They’re drought tolerant and like most peppers, they love the heat and humidity of the mid-Atlantic.

Fish pepper plants at Mount Vernon

The Fish pepper nearly disappeared in the early 20th century but was preserved thanks to a beekeeper named H. Ralph Weaver in the 1940s. His grandson, William Woys Weaver, rediscovered his seeds and reintroduced the pepper to the public in 1995. ​Since then, there’s been a resurgence in local, small growers who have been saving and sharing fish pepper seeds.

Here are a couple of seed sources if you want to add fish peppers to your garden this year:

• https://www.rareseeds.com/pepper-hot-fish

• https://www.southernexposure.com/products/fish-hot-pepper/