🇺🇸 United States · Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Philadelphia pepper pot
A spicy Philadelphia soup of tripe and other cheap cuts of meat with vegetables, whole black pepper and hot peppers, sometimes with dumplings, long sold from market stalls and in cans.
Origin and history
According to the Encyclopedia of Greater Philadelphia, pepper pot reached the city in the mid-1700s from the West Indies through trade, and enslaved Africans most likely brought a callaloo-based version. It was printed in 1792 as 'A West-India Pepper Pot'; by the early 1800s it was a distinctly Philadelphian street food, sold by numerous Black women, and John Lewis Krimmel painted it in 1811. Campbell's introduced a canned version in the early 1900s. The Valley Forge story is a legend.
Make it at home
- Makes
- 6 servings
- Total time
- 2 h
- Hands-on
- 35 min
Ingredients
- 50 g (3/4 cup)3/4 cup onion, medium dice
- 50 g (1/2 cup)1/2 cup celery, medium dice
- 40 g (1/3 cup)1/3 cup carrot, medium dice
- 1 tbsp butter or olive oil
- 2 liters8 cups beef broth
- 225 g1/2 lb honeycomb tripe, washed, small dice
- 55 g2 oz veal shank meat, small dice; extra veal or beef shank is fine
- 1 medium potato, medium dice
- 1 small green bell pepper, medium dice
- 1 sachet parsley, thyme, bay leaf and whole black peppercorns, tied in cheesecloth
- cayenne or other hot pepper, coarsely ground black pepper and salt, to taste; the soup should be properly hot
- 450 g1 lb fresh spaetzle (or 225 g / 1/2 lb macaroni), cooked per directions
Method
-
1. Cook the onion, celery and carrot in the butter until they take on some color.
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2. Add the beef broth, tripe and veal and simmer for 1 hour.
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3. Add the potato, bell pepper and the sachet and simmer until the vegetables are tender and the tripe is soft, skimming fat if needed.
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4. Discard the sachet and season with cayenne, black pepper and salt until the soup is peppery.
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5. Push the spaetzle into the simmering soup and cook 3 to 5 minutes until it floats; if using macaroni, stir in the cooked pasta instead.
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6. Serve hot with bread.
Notes
- Quantities follow a recipe adapted from a Philadelphia culinary-institute chef and published by WHYY (no servings stated). Its meat is light for 8 cups of broth: a 1947 Culinary Arts Institute recipe (Pennsylvania Dutch chapter, via Food.com) uses about 2 lb of tripe and a veal shank for around 3 quarts of water, with suet dumplings, so add more tripe or veal if you want a meatier pot. A cow's foot adds body.
- There was never a single Philadelphia recipe: food historian William Woys Weaver, quoted in the Philadelphia Inquirer, says tripe is included usually but not always, and colonial versions used ox foot. The 1792 recipe 'A West-India Pepper Pot' used several meats, root vegetables and greens with flour-and-water dumplings, allspice, cloves and mace, seasoned 'very hot' with cayenne.
- Dumplings, spaetzle or noodles are all used; choose according to taste.
- The WHYY recipe gives no amount for the pepper; season to taste, since the name comes from the generous black pepper.
Adapted from WHYY, Celebrate Soup Month with Philly's historic pepper pot soup (recipe adapted from chef Joe DiGironimo, JNA Institute of Culinary Arts) and Encyclopedia of Greater Philadelphia, Philadelphia Pepper Pot.
At the festivals
No festival we list has printed it on a menu yet.