Maryland-grown fish peppers could find hot market

Two farmworkers pace down a row of slightly raised ribbons of earth covered in black plastic. Every foot or so, the men poke a hole with a tool that looks like a broom handle with one of its ends sharpened to a point.

Into each divot goes a tiny sprig of green. The tallest among them measures no more than the length of an index finger.

When the planting that began Tuesday is finished, there will be 3,500 sprigs in all, ready to grow into what Andy Holloway hopes is the region's next hot agricultural commodity.

Since its founding in 2011, Holloway's Hebron-based Baywater Farms has evolved into one of Delmarva's least risk-averse agricultural operations. While its specialty is tomatoes, Baywater also has a penchant for experimentation, giving over portions of its 60 acres of cropland to rainbow carrots, eggplant and other oddities.

Fish peppers, though, are a first, even for a farmer with a rebellious streak.

Holloway said the farm's philosophy has always come first.

The fifth-generation farmer grows only heirloom varieties, which spring from seeds that predate hybridization and genetic modification. He also emphasizes the use of all-natural fertilizers and pesticides. The farm is in the final steps of gaining its organic certification, he said.

The fish peppers take the farm one step further. It's the first time that Baywater has raised a crop whose identity is intertwined with the history of the mid-Atlantic, Holloway said.

For some consumers, that's no trivial matter.

"Anyone can go to Wal-Mart and pick up some squash and cucumbers," Holloway said. "But the higher-end consumers who care about what they eat, this feeds into that."

Advocates of the "locavore" movement tout several benefits of eating locally.

Such foods tend to be packed with more nutrients, they taste better and they support the local economy more directly, said Travis Wright, the chef at two West Ocean City restaurants, Culture and The Shark on the Harbor.

“It’s nice to see us kind of circling back, even if it’s just on a smaller scale for now," Wright said. "I know our clientele at both restaurants appreciate that. Knowing where your food comes from is one of our mottoes."

If a food can trace its history to the region as well, Holloway said, it adds a key selling point. People willing to pay a little more for their produce at farmers markets or at restaurants are often interested in what he called the food's "story."

In fish peppers' case, it is one of humble beginnings, a surge in popularity and near-extinction.

Fish peppers are spicy, to be sure. But they're more akin to the flavorful cayenne pepper than the fiery habanero, Wright said. The individual peppers are shaped like a chili pepper, but the color ranges, depending on maturing, from white, to white with green stripes, to finally, fully red.

The pepper likely originated in the Caribbean and made its way to the Chesapeake Bay region in the late-1800s. It was adopted by African-American communities as a source of heat in seafood-based stews, according to a Smithsonian Institute blog on the subject.

Historians speculate that the name "fish pepper" came from its almost-exclusive use as a spice in mid-Atlantic seafood dishes. The pepper was especially prized in its white form, since it could be added to creamy sauces without upsetting the color.

"It was the days before Old Bay," Holloway joked.

The pepper declined along with the bay's fishing industry in the 20th century. Since it rarely was mentioned in formal recipes, the fish pepper was in danger of being forgotten.

Its salvation came in the 1940s, when a Pennsylvania man traded his collection of various pepper seeds, including the fish pepper's waning lifeline, to another man for honeybees. The recipient of those seeds saved them down through the years.

That man's grandson, who had become a prominent food historian, brought them public for the first time in 1995, and they've been available for sale ever since.

The fish pepper story easily could have ended much sooner. Between the turn of the 20th century and the early 1980s, more than 90 percent of seed varieties had dropped out of circulation, according to one estimate.

Part of the reason was simple economics, experts say. The genetically modified replacements offered higher yields and were resistant to certain pesticides, such as Roundup, that killed everything else.

A countermovement has emerged in recent decades that emphasizes the opposite: locally grown and organically raised produce.

Back in Hebron, Holloway acknowledges that his supposedly new way of farming bears more than a passing resemblance to the way his great-grandfather Randolph tended his crops on the same land. He runs Baywater with his family, including his brother, Wicomico County Commissioner Matt Holloway.

If nature complies, each fish pepper plant should be laden with 75-100 fish peppers by harvest time in mid-July. They will be picked by hand, packaged and shipped off to restaurants, farmers markets, farm-to-table produce distributors and certain Whole Foods grocery stores in the mid-Atlantic.

Like all of his products, each package will bear a Baywater label. The branding is important, Holloway said, because consumers aren't just buying food. As he sees it, they're buying a story.

That costs more, he admits. For instance, he sells his tomatoes for $2.50 a pound, compared to the $1 that the generic ones fetch.

For some consumers, it's worth paying a little extra for what Baywater offers.

The proof is in the numbers, Holloway said. He put out his first crop of tomatoes three years ago, starting with 3,000 plants. This year, his fields are dotted with 50,000 heirloom tomato plants, which he hopes will be enough to meet the rising demand.

Perhaps next year, he said, he will double his production of fish peppers. It all depends on what consumers want.

"Like all farming," Holloway said, "this is a little bit of a gamble."

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