Entry · catalog no. 8903
pepper pot
/ /ˈpɛpər pɑt/ /PEP-er pot
noun · Philadelphia · 1810s
✓ Verified
1.
A hot, heavily peppered stew or soup, in Philadelphia traditionally made with tripe or other inexpensive meat and greens, long sold from pots on street corners and in markets by Black women.
“Her grandmother taught her that real pepper pot should make your eyes water before you finish the bowl.”
2.
The street trade itself, which gave free Black women in early Philadelphia an independent living outside domestic service.
“Selling pepper pot kept her out of anyone's kitchen but her own.”
Origin & Attribution
Pepper pot reached Philadelphia through West Indian trade in the mid-1700s; historians think enslaved Africans likely carried a callaloo-style version, though this is not documented. A recipe for A West-India Pepper Pot printed in Philadelphia in 1792 shows the dish was established there. The 1810 booklet The Cries of Philadelphia describes Black women selling it in markets and on street corners, and John Lewis Krimmel's 1811 painting Pepper-Pot: A Scene in the Philadelphia Market shows a Black woman vendor. The popular story that the soup was invented at Valley Forge in 1777 is a legend that erases the Black women who built the trade.
1792
A West-India Pepper Pot recipe printed in Philadelphia
1810
The Cries of Philadelphia describes Black women selling pepper pot
1811
Krimmel exhibits Pepper-Pot: A Scene in the Philadelphia Market
Region of origin
West
Midwest
N.East
South
The Northeast
Philadelphia · 1810s
Spoken by
Black Philadelphians, historically women street vendors
$PEPPERThe Record · cultural traction
▲ Steady234 yrs
ahead of the mainstream
30/100
peak cultural energy
Introduced to English by the culture — logged here before the mainstream caught on.
Cultural usage — the recordMainstream search interest
First used
1792
in the culture
Cultural energy indexed from documented usage, search interest, and citation frequency. The recorded date is the archive’s permanent point of record.
Hear it spoken
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The Bronx, NY
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Philadelphia, PA
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Citations & Sources
■
Theresa Altieri Taplin, 'Philadelphia Pepper Pot,' Encyclopedia of Greater Philadelphia (2020)
web
■
The Cries of Philadelphia (1810), Historical Society of Pennsylvania
book
■
John Lewis Krimmel, Pepper-Pot: A Scene in the Philadelphia Market (1811), Philadelphia Museum of Art
web
■
+ Cite a sourceThe New Art of Cookery (Philadelphia, 1792)
book
See also