A pepper’s voyage from Apatin 1912 to retail shelves in the US 2012
By M. Lee Greene, Owner, Scrumptious Pantry
Joe Hussli tucked the seeds of his favorite pepper into his garments before he glanced one last time over the land that has been his home. He took his bags and left, towards the new land that seemed to promise a better future in light of the political tensions that were building in Apatin in 1912 (then the Austrian-Hungarian Empire, now Serbia).
Last month – exactly 100 years after Joe left for the new world – the pepper traveled back to Europe, to the Salone del Gusto in Turin. It traveled as an Ark of Taste passenger, as a pickle in the Scrumptious Pantry’s line of heirloom foods: an effort to revive interest in this delicious heirloom varietal and preserve it. A lot has changed in agriculture over the last century, and with the advancement of hybrid varietals, cultivation of the pepper has been pretty much abandoned. What would Joe think of this?