[CH] anaother pepper patch...

bill jernigan (billjernigan@iqonline.net)
Sun, 14 Apr 2002 08:12:35 -0400 

Tar Heel State adds dash of Tabasco
By JAY PRICE
April 10, 2002
Louisiana may filch North Carolina's NBA team, but the Tar Heel State has 
already stolen a flicker of Louisiana's fire, its spiciest icon, its 
culinary soul.
North Carolina farmers are now growing the sacred strain of pepper that's 
used to make Tabasco sauce.
With the blessing of the McIlhenny Co. - and seeds from the company's 
closely guarded supplies - two farmers in Carteret and Pamlico counties are 
sprouting test plots of the peppers, which are the product of 134 years of 
selective breeding by the mystique-shrouded king of hot sauces.
"The company is always interested in finding new places to grow its 
peppers," said Shane Bernard, the McIlhenny Co.'s historian.
But not in the United States, at least until now.
The company's best-known source of the small but unusually hot peppers is 
its home, Avery Island, La. Indeed, the red-dotted fields draw 110,000 
tourists a year. But beginning in the 1960s, it also began to ship seeds to 
several Latin American countries, where the growing goes on nearly 
year-round, Bernard said.
Besides Louisiana, though, Bernard didn't know of any other state where the 
company's peppers had been grown. He added that he hadn't heard of the test 
in North Carolina.
Ray Harris, a Carteret County cooperative extension agent, said the idea 
sprang from a conversation he had with a retired North Carolina State 
University plant pathologist who had worked with pepper growers in Central 
America. Harris called McIlhenny Co., and Harold Osborn, who is not only 
head of the company's agriculture department but also a McIlhenny family 
member, agreed that it was worth a try and mailed enough seeds for about 30 
acres of pepper plants.
The climate and soil in North Carolina are perfect for the peppers, Harris 
said. The question is whether farmers can make money, which is the whole 
idea behind the test crop.
(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, http://www.shns.com.)



bill

It is a sobering thought that when Mozart was my age, he had been dead for 
two years.
                 -- Tom Lehrer