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An illustration of variations of pepperpot soup by Eric Battle was created for \u201dPepperpot,\u201d a multidisciplinary performance as part of ArtPhilly\u2019s \u201dWhat Now: 2026\u201d festival. (Eric Battle)<\/p>\nWhat will the performance entail?<\/p>\n
\u201cPepperpot\u201d features original music by Butler-Waters, spoken word poetry, storytelling, visual art and, of course, soup. A few variations, including an ahistorical vegetarian option, by Chef Valerie Erwin will be ladled out for spectators at Cherry Street Pier on Saturday.\n<\/p>\n
The hearty soup of leafy greens, root vegetables and cheap cuts of meat is heavily seasoned with Caribbean spices and is typically cooked and sold by free Black women in Philadelphia.\n<\/p>\n
Even though several colonial cities had substantial free Black populations, for some reason, pepperpot was a uniquely Philly jawn.\n<\/p>\n
\u201cYou could imagine it becoming a similar thing in other coastal cities, places like Charleston and Savannah, because Philadelphia was not unique in terms of receiving materials and people from the Caribbean,\u201d said Adrienne Whaley, director of education and community engagement at the Museum of the American Revolution. \u201cI do not know exactly why it became so Philadelphia. Maybe it\u2019s because tripe became so associated with it and tripe became a thing that was very associated with Philadelphia cuisine.\u201d\n <\/p>\n
An illustration of variations of pepperpot soup by Eric Battle was created for \u201dPepperpot,\u201d a multidisciplinary performance as part of ArtPhilly\u2019s \u201dWhat Now: 2026\u201d festival. (Eric Battle)<\/p>\n
The idea of turning pepperpot soup into an interdisciplinary experience was conceived by the artist Homer Jackson, who pitched it to ArtPhilly. But shortly after \u201cPepperpot\u201d was green-lighted, Jackson died of cancer.\n<\/p>\n
\u201cI submitted it in April, he passed away in July,\u201d said V. Shayne Frederick, one of ArtPhilly\u2019s curators. \u201cI wanted to carry it on, keep his legacy alive because that was one of his concerns. I was talking to him as his health was failing and he was, like, \u2018So you\u2019re going to take care of my project?\u2019 I said, \u2018Of course, I\u2019m going to take care of your project.\u2019\u201d\n<\/p>\n
Part of Frederick\u2019s attraction to \u201cPepperpot\u201d is the opportunity to portray 18th-century Black women as entrepreneurial \u201cagents of change\u201d who roamed freely throughout the city and interacted with almost every race and social stratum in Philadelphia.\n<\/p>\n
How pepperpot set Philly free\n<\/p>\n
An 1812 painting, \u201cPepper-Pot: A Scene in the Philadelphia Market\u201d by John Lewis Krimmel at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, shows a Black woman in the center of the canvas selling soup to a multi-generational crowd of what appears to be different socio-economic backgrounds.\n<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is much deeper than just soup,\u201d Frederick said. \u201cThey would serve these soups in taverns and places, so they heard things and said things. Thinking historically about these Black women in the early United States, what they\u2019d be talking about: Probably things like slavery. Politics. These women literally had their ears to the streets.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\u201cPepperpot\u201d will also feature contributions from fiber artist Asake-Denise Jones, who created a series of aprons depicting the stories of women who sold pepperpot soup. She said she believes they not just nourished Philadelphians, but were also part of the Underground Railroad, shuttling Black people running away from slavery.\n<\/p>\n
\u201cImagine you\u2019re an African American person, you\u2019re escaping, you come to a city and see these Black women selling and talking to both Black and white people,\u201d she said. \u201cThey would be the people you would feel safest to have a conversation with about where to get food, where to get clothing, where\u2019s the next place to go.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
\u201cPepperpot\u201d will be performed once during the \u201cWhat Now: 2026\u201d festival on Saturday.\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"What will the performance entail? \u201cPepperpot\u201d features original music by Butler-Waters, spoken word poetry, storytelling, visual art and,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":214394,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[93943,12910,93944,69,71,15989,70],"class_list":["post-214393","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-philadelphia","tag-black-art","tag-black-history","tag-black-womens-history","tag-philadelphia","tag-philadelphia-headlines","tag-philadelphia-history","tag-philadelphia-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/214393","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=214393"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/214393\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/214394"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=214393"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=214393"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=214393"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}