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.
Decades later, when William found the jar of seeds, he handed them over to the Seed Savers Exchange, a non-profit that catalogues and preserves heirloom varieties. The Exchange regenerated the seeds and began cultivating them before offering them to the public. They first sold in Maryland and the surrounding Mid-Atlantic region before becoming popular elsewhere.
Oh good grief, don’t tell my parents. It’s already nearly impossible to get them to throw anything away; if they knew there was a fraction of a chance that their hoarding would prevent extinction of something, it would be absolutely impossible.
Though this is pretty cool if you’re not from a hoarder family. 😂
I will apply this thinking to my data hoarding. Some day, the world might thank me for saving some particular file that by then is long gone from the internet! I’m actually doing the world a favor!
That’s why I pirated Bloodsucking pharaohs in Pittsburgh. That movie can’t go extinct just because it’s terrible and nobody wants to watch it!
[email protected] is leaking
That’s an automatic subscribe for me.
Yo! Can’t just hog all the copium for yourself!