10/16/2025
Tabasco peppers! đ„ So many of the vegetables weâve grown have a deep and often hidden historyânone more so than the Tabasco pepper.
Originally from the region of the same name in Mexico, these and other hot peppers were used by enslaved people in the Deep South to bring some flavor to the scant (and often very low quality) meats they were provided. It could also kick some flavor into boiled greens, cornbread, black eyed peas, and other common Southern dishes.
After the Civil War, both blacks and whites faced hunger, poverty, sickness and destruction. But as long as they had a bottle of vinegar and peppers on the table, they at least had some flavor.
There was money to be made with a fancier approach The McIlhenny family in Louisiana began to produce and bottle an aged, fermented hot sauce under the Tabasco brand (with significant help from the families they had previously enslaved) after their banking business was destroyed by the war. And the rest was culinary history.
We didnât have the time to age our pepper mash for three years in special oak casks, so instead we just packed our jar with peppers, threw in a few peppercorns as well, and then filled the whole thing with vinegar. Andâas any Southerner could tell youâitâs pretty dang good on some greens, taters and cornbread.
